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PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

GEORGE BLUMENTHAL FOUNDATION 
1912 



COLUMBIA 

UNIVERSITY PRESS 

SALES AGENTS 

New York : 
LEMCKE & BUECHNER 
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London : 
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Toronto : 

HENRY FROWDE 

25 Richmond Street, W. 



COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LECTURES 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 

HIS PERMANENT INFLUENCE 
ON AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS 



BY 



JOHN SHARP WILLIAMS 

UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM MISBISSIPPI 




COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 
1913 

All rights reserved 



£53Z 



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Copyright, 1913 
By Columbia University Press 

Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1913 



Press or 

Tmb Niw Era Printing CaMPANr 

Lancaster, pa. 



©CI.A.34 72 6 



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DEDICATED 

TO 

MY WIFE'S MOTHER-IN-LAW 



PREFACE 

I WROTE and delivered these lectures not only in 
great haste, but under great pressure. At the time the 
promise to deliver them was made, Congress was 
expected to adjourn about the middle of June. It 
adjourned about the first of September. This sub- 
tracted two and one-half months from my time. 
I deemed it my duty later to devote two and one-half 
weeks of the time remaining to campaign field work in 
behalf of the election to the Presidency of one of Mr. 
Jefferson's successors. Governor Woodrow Wilson. 
The natural inference from all this is that the work 
may, and probably does, contain errors. 

I have sought as much as possible to bring the past 
bodily into the present by quotations from dead actors. 
The reader will find a very free use of itahcs. It is 
not good taste; but the hearer was thereby spared 
much hearing, and the reader will be spared much 
reading. Italicizing the salient point of a quotation 
is my way of saving words of comment, which other- 
wise would be necessary. 

No man can entirely divorce himself from his likings 
and dislikings. I have tried to do it; but I have for 
long loved world democracy and its apostles, and 
disliked special privilege and its beneficiaries and 
upholders. 

There is no American about whom more has been 
written than Mr. Jefferson. In addition to the stand- 



Viii PREFACE 

ard histories of the United States and what they record 
concerning him, there is a distinct Jeffersonian bibli- 
ography. The hst below, under the heading "Bibli- 
ography," contains articles, pamphlets, and books, 
especially appertaining to Mr. Jefferson, which I have 
read either recently, or in times past. 

John Sharp Williams. 



CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

, I. Introductory 1 

* II. Jefferson the Revolutionist 

1. In America 7 

2. In France 56 

^ III. Jefferson the Democratizer of State 

Institutions 

1. A State Made Over 67 

2. An Apostle of Local Self -Government . 96 
IV. Jefferson's Influence as a Diplomat. . . 107 

V. Jefferson the Democratizer of Federal 
Institutions 

Stemming the Counter-Revolution 141 

VI. The Influence of Jefferson as Presi- 
dent 

1. "My Passion is Peace" 196 

2. "An Empire for Liberty" 201 

3. Jeffersonian Simplicity 225 

Some Minor Matters 239 

Summing up 242 

VII. Jefferson's Influence on Freedom of 

Religion in America 244 

VIII. Jefferson's Influence on Our Edu- 
cational Institutions 266 

Bibliography 308 

Index 313 



ix 



PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF 

THOMAS JEFFERSON 
ON AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS 

CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTORY 

In an article written by Andrew D. White, entitled, 
''Jefferson and Slavery," in the Atlantic Monthly for 
January, 1862, he says that "in the architecture" of 
our democratic repubhc, we find ''the agency mainly 
of six men." 

First, three men who "did most to found the Re- 
public: and these three men are Washington, Adams 
and Jefferson." 

"Secondly, two men who" . . . "did most to huild 
the Republic: and these two men are Jefferson and 
Hamilton." 

" Third, three men, who, having a clear theory in their 
heads, and a deep conviction in their hearts . . . did 
most to brace the Republic: and these three men are 
Franklin, Jefferson and Channing." 

He continues : — 

"So, rising above the dust raised in our old quarrels, and taking 
a broad view of this Democracy, we see Jefferson placed firmly in 
each of these groups. 

2 1 



2 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

"If we search in Jefferson's writings and in the contemporary 
records to ascertain what that power was which won him these 
positions, we find that it was no personal skill in cajoling friends or 
scaring enemies. . . . 

"The real secret of his power was, first of all, that Jefferson saw 
infinitely deeper into the principles of the rising democracy, and 
infinitely farther into its future working, than any other man of his 
time. Those who earnestly read him will often halt astounded at 
proofs of a foresight in him almost miraculous." 

The subject prescribed for me in these lectures is 
the permanent influence of Thomas Jefferson on 
American institutions. Who can say, with assurance, 
what feature in a nation's institutions is permanent, 
until its life has been Hved out to its end? To dehneate 
the birth principles of the American confederation is 
easy, but to tell how far these birth principles are 
permanently Hfe principles, is not so. What Solon said 
to Croesus applies. What features seemingly essential 
to our institutions at any one particular time, are really 
so, is a question whose answer is colored by the time at 
which the question is asked. If such a question had 
been asked during and immediately after the Revo- 
lution, when the love of freedom was at high tide, the 
answer would have been one thing; if after Shay's 
Rebellion in Massachusetts and the general anarchic 
condition, leading to a great and general reaction 
against the principles of the American Revolution, it 
would have been another. If asked once more, after 
four years of Jefferson's administration had allayed the 
fear of democracy and of popular rule, the reply would 
have been still different. Then put yourselves back in 
the period of 1850-60, and again to the year 1866, and 
yet again to 1876, and get a different reply in each case. 



INTRODUCTORY 3 

Imagine the question asked and answered during 
reconstruction days, and again later on after sensible 
men had concluded with Tourgee, who called himself 
"One of the Fools," that reconstruction had been ''A 
Fool's Errand." Again how essentially different the 
replies would be before and after we had "gone a 
world-powering" in the Philippines; — before, when all 
were agreed that we wanted no entanglements with the 
old world by interference, or possession; that we de- 
sired only "friendly commerce with all and entangling 
aUiances with none," and after, when we stood amazed 
to find that somehow we had silHly drifted into becom- 
ing an Asiatic power, with Asiatic territorial and poUt- 
ical interests and anxieties. 

Not knowing what all this has made pregnant in the 
womb of the future, which of us can assert that any 
particular feature of our system now deemed funda- 
mental, characteristic, permanent, shall be so ten years 
from now — whether, in any particular case, "having 
the wolf by the ears," we shall or shall not, or can or 
can not, "turn him loose"? All of which concludes in 
this; that for the purpose of the inquiry of these 
lectures, that is permanent which the inquirer in his 
horoscoping deems permanent, and, as the wish is so 
much the father of the thought, it will be largely that 
which he wishes and prays and hopes is so. 

Next, in determining the scope of our work in these 
lectures: what are the "institutions" of a people? Are 
they simply constitutional forms? If so, these United 
States and Mexico and the Central American republics 
have the same institutions; and England and Italy and 
Germany, all being "Hmited monarchies" with so-called 



4 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

''responsible parliamentary ministries," have the same 
institutions. Can either of these statements be true? 
No. Why not? Because just as a man has an out- 
ward body and an inner informing and directing soul, 
so a nation has a body-poHtic, about which we hear so 
much, and a soul-politic, about which we hear little, or 
nothing, under that name. U Esprit des Lois — the 
spirit of the institution — that is, the thing vitahzing 
the words of constitutions and statutes — must be taken 
into consideration. Buckle's unfinished political novum 
organum — his ''History of Civilization" — is only a 
historical analysis of the evolutionary development of 
the soul-politic of the peoples. 

All considered, I shall then treat the subject in this 
full sense, and I shall exhibit the permanent, or thought- 
to-be-permanent, influence of Mr. Jefferson, not only 
on American visible institutions, but on American 
vitalizing thought and practice. 

But again, how can one tell a man's political influence, 
without knowing at least enough of his heredity and 
environment to explain his words, theories, and acts in 
the light of them? 

No man can escape altogether the impress of the 
form and color of his time and place, nor altogether 
ignore the blood which courses in his veins. Yet for 
all this, I shall have neither time nor space. The man, 
Jefferson, in his lovableness of disposition, his feminine 
cleanness of speech and thought and life, his almost 
infinite versatility, his noble optimism, his world- 
vision, I would literally love to describe. But all that 
I must ruthlessly forego, save for a sidelight here and 
there, while correcting some errors of others. 



INTRODUCTORY 5 

What was his environment? First, he was a 
Virginian and a planter. Secondly, he was a frontiers- 
man, because Albemarle County, when he was growing 
up, was still a frontier country. The county settled 
very rapidly, but still, during the formative period of 
Thomas Jefferson's life, his environment was a frontier 
environment. The life he lived later was that of an 
independent country gentleman. Thus from both 
sources individuality was the first and necessary 
product of his life and of the lives of those about him; 
its chief and indispensable lesson being a reliance on 
one's own intellect, initiative, and resources; from 
which proceeded an absolute contempt for authority 
and precedent — merely as such. 

Much has been said about Jefferson's being influenced 
by Rousseau's ''Contrat Social." The idea of a social 
contract being at the base of government — a compact 
of the people amongst themselves — was ingrained in 
his thought and in the thought of all those around him, 
but it was not from reading. Jefferson never read 
Rousseau until long after his own political opinions 
had been formed. Indeed if he read him at all, I can 
find no trace of it. On the frontier people got this idea 
of government resting on compact because it was a fact 
of their lives. First one settler, then half a dozen, 
then a score would move into a neighborhood beyond 
the support of old settlements, and then naturally the 
neighbors would some day gather, and after they had 
chatted about the crops, about getting a teacher if 
they could, and about a place for the itinerant preacher 
to "hold forth" when he came, they would take up the 
question of the establishment of a practical local 



6 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

government; the selection of somebody before whom 
neighborhood differences should be argued and by 
whom they should be settled — by analogy of English 
law, a ''justice of the peace" — the selection of some- 
body who should pursue horse thieves, or other crimi- 
nals, arrest and bring them in for trial — by analogy 
of English law, a "constable" — the selection of 
somebody to correspond with the legislature to secure 
the organization of a new county, so that they might 
have a local board to lay out roads, designate ferries, 
etc., and so that they might have representation in the 
State legislative body; but preceding all, where and 
how and under what leadership they should meet for 
defence against the Indians, when needful. All of 
these things were done in America in each neighborhood, 
by a "compact" of the people with one another. This 
each frontiersman's son learned, with his other A B Cs, 
on his father's knee, as a part of the usual poUtical 
experience of the American people. 



CHAPTER II 

JEFFERSON THE REVOLUTIONIST 

1. IN AMERICA 

I TAKE it that the influence of our independence has 
permanently affected our institutions and that our 
revolutionary principles are the informing spirit of 
them; therefore, that Jefferson's acts and words as a 
revolutionist come within the scope of this inquiry. 

Jefferson became of age in 1764. Before that, he 
had become attached to the cause of American freedom. 
Soon, nobody was more decided, none more radical, in 
opposition to the British policy towards the colonies 
than he. 

In a letter to William Wirt, with his good sense and 
canny tact, he says: "Sensible, however, of the im- 
portance of unanimity among our constituents, although 
we often wished to go faster, we slackened our pace that 
our less ardent colleagues might keep up with us; and 
they, on their part, differing nothing from us in prin- 
ciple, quickened their gait somewhat beyond that 
which their prudence might of itself have advised, and 
thus consolidated the phalanx, which breasted the 
power of Britain. By this harmony of the bold with 
the cautious, we advanced with our constituents in 
undivided mass and with fewer examples" (in Virginia) 
"of separation than perhaps existed in any other part of 
the Union." 

7 



8 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

In his biography he uses this language, concerning 
the origin of the committees of correspondence: — 

"We were all sensible that the most urgent of all measures was 
that of coming to an understanding with all the other colonies to 
consider the British claims as a common cause to all and to produce 
a unity of action; and for this purpose that a committee of corre- 
spondence in each colony would be the best instrument for inter- 
communication: and that their first measure would probably be to 
propose a meeting of deputies for every colony, at some central 
place, who should be charged with the direction of measures which 
should be taken by all. I, therefore, drew up the resolutions which 
may be seen in Wirt, page 67." 

The resolutions to which he refers designate a 
standing committee of intercolonial correspondence 
and inquiry. 

There has been some contention about which colony 
first organized the committees of correspondence. 
Bancroft has it about right when he says, ''Massa- 
chusetts organized a province, Virginia promoted a 
confederacy. Were the several committees but to 
come together, the world would see an American 
Congress." 

Senator Lodge, in the History of Nations Series, 
Volume 23, is one of the few historians who gives due 
weight to the committees of correspondence and 
safety, as provisional governments. He calls them 
very aptly, "a system of revolutionary machinery." 

Much of this committee government was secret and 
constitutes lost pages of our history. 

The real truth is that a Union for the colonies was 
effected with the inauguration of the intercolonial 
correspondence committees. They constituted as 
purely a revolutionary group of bodies as did the com- 



THE REVOLUTIONIST 9 

mittees of public safety and the other committees, formed 
partially in imitation of them, during the French revo- 
lutionary period. It was the American committees of 
safety, which suggested an example for the Ku Klux 
Klan in the South later in its history — both acting 
with a perfect secrecy, which thus far even has never 
been fully unveiled. By virtue of this self-constituted 
authority, men threw the tea overboard in Boston 
harbor and persuaded, coerced, or intimidated con- 
signees in other American ports to refuse to receive 
any such consignments. 

A more perfectly enigmatic Ku Klux announcement 
was never made than that of John Rowe, when — the 
people of Boston having exhausted all peaceful and 
legal means to prevent the Governor from granting 
a pass, which would enable the ship laden with tea 
to clear the harbor under the guns of the castle — he 
asked: ''Who knows how tea will mingle with salt 
water?" Then, Fiske recites that, ''amidst profound 
stillness," Samuel Adams arose and said, quietly, but 
distinctly, "This meeting can do nothing more to save 
the country." This was the signal upon which the 
Massachusetts committees ceased by public utterance 
to direct the movement and when, in some agreed way, 
there came about the secret movement by disguised 
men. The "Mohawk Indians," hastening to the 
wharf, taking possession of the ship, unloaded its cargo 
into the sea. 

Too much importance cannot be attached to the 
Revolutionary committees of correspondence; first, for 
making and keeping a united front between the towns 
in Massachusetts, upon the motion of Samuel Adams, 



10 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

and afterwards, for securing this same harmony of 
action and unity of purpose between the several colonies, 
upon the suggestion of Jefferson's resolution adopted 
by the band of patriots met in the Apollo Room in 
the Raleigh Tavern at WiUiamsburg. During the 
interregnum between recognized British authority and 
the newly organized American authority, these com- 
mittees constituted the real government. Through 
them the American people learned, in nearly all of the 
colonies, the lesson of the capacity of the people to 
govern themselves directly, even without regularly 
constituted over-lords or governors. It is no wonder 
that Daniel Leonard, the great Tory and British local 
leader, said of these committees, ''This is the foulest, 
subtlest, and most venomous serpent ever issued from 
the egg of sedition. It is the source of the rebellion. 
I saw the small seed when it was planted; it was a grain 
of mustard. I have watched the plant until it has be- 
come a tree." 

The resolution to make these committees of corre- 
spondence intercolonial was, at Jefferson's request, 
offered in the Assembly by Dabney Carr, the friend 
and later the brother-in-law of Jefferson, with whom 
Jefferson had so often sat upon the ''Little Mountain," 
in closest political and intellectual communion, in a 
sweetness of friendship seldom rivaled between men. 

Now comes another meeting of the members of the 
House of Burgesses at the Apollo Room in the Raleigh 
Tavern and the formation of another association, 
entered into by all of them, declaring it unpatriotic to 
buy British East Indian tea or other commodities; that 
"an attack upon one of the colonies was an attack upon 



THE REVOLUTIONIST 11 

all," and directing the Corresponding Committee of 
the State to devise with the other committees of the 
other colonies a general annual congress, and at the 
same time calling a Virginia convention to be held at 
Williamsburg on August 1st, to appoint delegates to 
this Congress. Thus was formally conceived our 
Union, destined to grow and strengthen, in due process 
of development, until it should become indissoluble. 

Massachusetts, in this crisis of her history, would 
probably have stood alone but for the committees of 
correspondence — really revolutionary conMnittees — 
which were keeping in elbow touch with one another 
from what is now Vermont down to what is now 
Georgia. 

The action of the Government in closing the port of 
Boston constituted a declaration of war upon all 
America, although perhaps no man in the British min- 
istry, or in the confidence of the King, so understood it. 

It is wonderful how everything goes back to this 
Apollo Room in the Raleigh Tavern, where Jefferson 
was one of the ruling spirits. For example, the move- 
ment towards a Continental Congress came first from 
New York. Coming from that State, only partially 
loyal to the American cause — perhaps not at that 
time loyal by a majority vote — it would have died 
still-born, had it not been taken up by the members of 
the Legislature of Virginia — prorogued and ad- 
journed — but still sitting in solemn voluntary ses- 
sion — in the Raleigh Tavern. 

It was on the 14th day of May, 1776, that the self- 
reconstituted Legislature of Virginia unanimously 
voted these instructions to its delegates: "To propose 



12 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

to that respectable body" (meaning by that respectable 
body, the Continental Congress) 'Ho declare the 
United Colonies free and independent States," and to 
''give the assent of this Colony to measures to form 
foreign alliances and a confederation, ^provided the power 
of forming government for the internal regulations of each 
colony he left to the colonial legislatures J ^ Here is the 
germ of our dual system of government — federal in 
foreign and inter-state matters, state in domestic 
affairs. In all your study of American history, keep 
this itahcized proviso in your minds. It will explain 
much. 

Revolutionary intimidation, it must be confessed, 
reigned foot-loose throughout America. The bold, 
patriotic and liberty-loving were not everywhere in a 
majority. The conditions were such, as Fiske says, 
that "neither councillors, nor judges, neither sheriffs 
nor jurymen, could be found to serve under the royal 
commission" to "execute the Regulating Act in Massa- 
chusetts." He further adds that for nine months this 
state of seeming anarchy continued, and that "yet 
the affairs of every-day life had gone on without friction 
or disturbance." 

This too recalls the condition of affairs in the South in 
'74 and '75, when, first in one place and then in another, 
all carpet-bag authority had been intimidated into 
flight or quiescence, and yet afterwards peace and law 
and order reigned. Both conditions, as well as what 
happened in the early history of California, are high 
tributes to the capacity of the American people for 
self-government . 

The instructions of Albemarle County to Mr. Thomas 



THE REVOLUTIONIST 13 

Jefiferson and Mr. John Walker, their two members of 
the House of Burgesses and their two deputies to the 
convention, are worth regarding, especially as from the 
style and the surroundings they were evidently written 
by Mr. Jefferson. They are as follows: — 

"Resolved, That the several inhabitants of the several States of 
British America are subject to the laws which they adopted at their 
first settlement, and to such others as have been since made by their 
respective Legislatures, duly constituted and appointed with their own 
consent. That no other Legislature whatever can rightly exercise 
authority over them, and that these privileges they hold as common 
rights of mankind, confirmed by political constitutions they have 
respectfully assumed, and also by several charters of compact from 
the Crown." 

Notice he goes back to the ''common rights of 
mankind," which are ''confirmed" — not created — 
by charters and "political constitutions." 

The language, "these privileges they hold as common 
rights of mankind," is, so far as I can discover, the first 
basing of the American cause upon "the rights of man," 
rather than upon the inherited legal rights of English- 
men. This was to grow into an assertion of the inherent 
right of self-government vested in every community, and 
by logical consequence, into the claim of right upon 
the part of any community to throw off any govern- 
ment, which, in its opinion, had ceased to subserve the 
purpose of all government, to wit: securing and main- 
taining the happiness and the liberties of those governed. 

Jefferson in his " Memoir " says, that these were his 
views from the very first dawn of the dispute, but that 
he had then "never been able to get anyone to agree 
with him except Mr. Wythe." 



14 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

Patrick Henry, the controlling genius in Hanover 
County, and probably the dictator of its resolutions, 
did not go so far. We find these resolutions asserting 
only 'Hhe privileges and immunities of their fellow- 
subjects in England," etc. 

The resolutions from Fairfax County, where George 
Washington presided over the meeting, used language 
not so strong as that of Hanover. 

The Virginia Convention met at the prescribed time. 
Jefferson was prevented by illness from attending. He 
had prepared, to be offered to the Convention, a draft 
of instructions to the Virginia members of Congress. 
He had forwarded a copy to Peyton Randolph and one 
to Henry. The fate of these resolutions we will give 
in Mr. Jefferson's own language: — 

"They were written in haste, with some uncertainties and in- 
accuracies about historical facts, wliich I neglected at the moment, 
because I thought they could be readily corrected at the convention. 
. . . Peyton Randolph informed the convention that he had re- 
ceived such a paper from a member, prevented by sickness from offer- 
ing it in his place, and he laid it on the table for perusal. It was read 
generally by the members, approved by many, though thought too 
bold for the present state of things; but they printed it in pamphlet 
form, under the title of 'A Summary View of the Rights of British 
America.' It found its way to England and was taken up by the 
opposition, interpolated a httle by Mr. Burke, so as to make it 
answer opposition purposes" (in England) "and in that form ran 
rapidly through several editions. ... I was informed afterwards 
by Peyton Randolph, that it had procured me the honor of having 
my name inserted in a long list of proscriptions, enrolled in a bill 
of attainder, which was commenced in one of the Houses of Parlia- 
ment, but was suppressed in embryo by the hasty step of events, 
which warned them to be a Httle cautious. . . . Tamer sentiments 
were preferred, and, I believe, wisely preferred; the leap I proposed 
being too long, as yet, for the mass of our citizens. The distance 



THE REVOLUTIONIST 15 

between these and the instructions actually adopted, is of some 
curiosity, however, and it shows the inequaUty of pace with which 
we moved, and the prudence required to keep front and rear to- 
gether. My creed had been formed on unsheatliing the sword at 
Lexington." (Lexington here is a lapsus linguae, or "plumae"; 
Boston is meant.) 

This "Summary View of the Rights of British Amer- 
ica" became the mine into which many delved for ideas 
and phrases in presenting the American side of the 
dispute. 

The Virginia State ''Convention" is worthy of note 
in this; that it is, as far as I know, the first of those 
pecuharly characteristic American institutions. A 
''Convention" with us is considered superior to an 
ordinary representative assembly; so much so, that a 
state convention can adopt a new constitution, without 
even referring it back to the people for their approval, 
as has been done in my State two or three times. It is 
looked upon as "the body of the people representatively 
assembled" and possesses full powers for state purposes, 
as a national convention would have for the purpose of 
completely altering the Constitution of the United 
States. 

Jefferson's argument in the "Summary View" is based 
very strongly upon the assertion of the right of expatri- 
ation. Hence his constant insistence through life on 
that right. It was, according to his view, at the very 
root of our contention in the Revolution. The right 
of expatriation was not then admitted by any nation 
of the earth. It is not admitted by Russia at all, nor 
fully by Prussia, nor Austria, to this good day, and was 
denied by Great Britain up to and even after the War 
of 1812. It has not been very long since we abrogated 



16 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

a treaty with Russia, growing out of differences between 
that Government and ours, based upon antagonistic 
views with regard to the doctrine of indefeasible 
allegiance. The " Summary View," however, takes the 
position that the American colonies expatriated them- 
selves as fully as did the Angles and the Saxons from 
their old country, when they settled in England, and 
that except for their voluntary adhesion to the same 
crown, the independence between the two countries 
would have been as complete, as that between England 
and the old home of the race. 

Jefferson had gone back to the Greek Republican 
conception of the status of colonies. 

The assertion is made that Great Britain had ren- 
dered no assistance to the colonists until after they had 
established themselves on a firm and permanent 
footing, and had, therefore, become valuable as custo- 
mers to the mother country; that we had submitted to 
trade regulations in our own interest, as long as they 
were not too restrictive to our own rights and were 
advantageous to the mother country, but that these 
had now become unbearable and too oppressive to be 
further permitted. 

From the same instrument, I shall quote another 
sentence characteristically Jeffersonian, because it is a 
forerunner of what will later appear in the Declaration 
of Independence : — 

"Scarcely have our minds been able to emerge from the aston- 
ishment into which one stroke of Parliamentary thunder has involved 
us, before another, more heavy and more alarming, is fallen on us. 
Single acts of tjTanny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion 
of a day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period 



THE REVOLUTIONIST 17 

and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, too 
plainly prove a deliberate, systematical plan of reducing us to 
slavery," 

It is not too much to say that the "Summary View 
of the Rights of British America" contained most of 
the essential ideas of the Declaration of Independence. 
It antedated that document by nearly two years; it 
complained of the same wrongs and set forth the same 
inherent and natural rights, and, in some respects, was 
more advanced in its views than the Declaration itself. 

It was scarcely a subject of wonder that it led to Mr. 
Jefferson's being placed upon the proscribed list. Here, 
as elsewhere, the student of Jefferson's life will find him 
always in advance, even of the progressive wing of the 
party with which he is cooperating, and will also find 
an illustration of his readiness to yield and concede 
non-essentials in order that all might move along 
together. 

One thing is most remarkable; the " Summary View " 
goes out of its way to refer justifyingly to the execution 
of Charles I. This was done in a paper proposed to be 
adopted by a Virginia convention, where men sat whose 
forefathers had resisted in the cause of the Stuart the 
utmost power of Oliver Cromwell, until, indeed, a 
formal treaty had been entered into between the great 
Lord Protector and the Old Dominion. In that body 
sat men, whose forefathers had been killed in the King's 
service, or had left England for Virginia rather than 
submit to the rule of the "Commonwealth." 

A distinguished Ex-President speaks of Mr. Jefferson 
as being "timid" and "vacillating!" He was more 
nearly rash. 
3 



18 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

The reader of the " Summary View " will note the 
ground upon which Jefferson places his protest against 
closing the port of Boston. It is the punishment of 
the many innocent for the acts of the few guilty. 

In this connection, it might be recalled that certain 
people in a Southern town, having signed a petition to 
a negro postmistress requesting her resignation, which 
was regarded by the Administration as a species of 
" intimidation," the post office was closed, by order of an 
American President, and all of the people in the town 
and adjacent territory put to the inconvenience and 
expense of getting their mail from a place a dozen miles 
or more away. The Federal Court was open, with 
Federal judge, marshal, grand juries and petty juries, 
and the federal law could have been vindicated by an 
exercise of the ordinary powers of the court. Even a 
little instance like this shows the importance of keeping 
general principles of justice and right government 
always in view, and illustrates the truth of the time- 
honored maxim that ''eternal vigilance is the price of 
hberty." 

Nobody in Virginia, or South Carolina, or New York, 
would have objected, or would have had any right to 
object, to the punishment by law of the men who 
unlawfully seized and threw the tea into the harbor, 
but the high-handed punishment of the whole people 
showed an absolute disregard of accepted rules of 
civilized government, and ''an intention not to punish 
an act, but an opinion." Still more tyrannical was the 
act of Parliament providing for the trial in England 
for certain classes of offenders. The plea in both 
cases and in the Southern post office case, that "the 



THE REVOLUTIONIST 19 

juries will not convict," is one to which tyrants resort, 
but one which ought never to be entertained in a free 
country. 

It is only needful to add that the ideas expressed in the 
" Summary View," in the latter part of which Jefferson 
adjures George III, "no longer to persevere in sacrificing 
the rights of one part of the empire to the inordinate 
desires of another, but to deal out to all equal and 
impartial right," and to "let no act be passed by one 
legislature which may infringe upon the rights and 
liberties of another," and reminds him that, "this is 
the important post in which fortune has placed you, 
holding the balance of a great, if a well-poised empire," 
now constitutes the principle underlying the practice 
of the British empire towards her white colonies. 
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the mother 
country are virtually held together only by the common 
kingship — the sole tie binding Virginia and England 
under Jefferson's theory. Each has its own admittedly 
independent legislative assembly, and the Parliament 
of Great Britain would no more think of legislating for 
Canada, in any really Canadian concern, than the 
Canadian Parliament would think of legislating for 
England or Wales. If the British Empire has become 
*'a well-poised empire," with reciprocal advantages for 
all its connections, it has been because of the wise 
adoption of this salutary rule. 

Again Jefferson says to the King: ^'Accept of every 
commercial preference it is within our power to give" 
etc. Today, if Canada, or any of the British colonies 
give trade preferences to Great Britain, it is because 
they choose to give them, and not because of any ac- 



20 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

knowledged right of the mother country to demand 
them, under the guise of regulating commerce. Thus 
this doctrine, which was thought to be too bold for 
adoption by the Virginia convention, even in the 
throes of a great revolution, is become the accepted 
doctrine of the ''great" and ''well-poised" empire, to 
whose king the propositions were addressed in reproof. 

Jefferson was elected Chairman of the Albemarle 
County Committee of Safety — such being, I presume, 
the confidence of the boys, who had been raised with 
him, in his "timidity" and "vacillation!" 

Girardin, in his "History of Virginia," page 6, says, 
that "the operations of these committees not being 
definite, were almost unlimited." Perhaps from them 
and Jefferson's recollection of them, the revolutionary 
committee system in France may have had its birth, 
though, of course, no man, who had experienced com- 
mittee government among the free, politically-trained, 
and comparatively equal and well-to-do inhabitants of 
America, could have foreseen its destructiveness and 
folly in France. 

Girardin says of these committees that they ex- 
amined the books of merchants to see if they imported 
the articles which were forbidden, or sold at higher 
prices than they should; that they examined all sus- 
pected persons, disarmed, fined, and punished them, 
and that, when necessary, they enlisted trained officers 
and armed independent companies — (the "minute 
men" of whom you read) — in each county, and that 
from their decision there was no appeal. Randall says 
that "it would be diflScult to say where the power of 
these local tribunals stopped, except that they did not 



THE REVOLUTIONIST 21 

exercise the death penalty and the power to confiscate 
estates, which last powers were retained by the con- 
ventions of the colonies." I 

Jefferson was, throughout his life, radical in ends and | 
conservative in means. It is not surprising, then, to ( 
find that the Committee of Safety in Albemarle County ' 
was less proscriptive in its conduct — more cautious 
and wise — than almost anywhere else. 

Then Mr. Jefferson was chosen a member of the 
Continental Congress. 

Meanwhile, Lord North's "Conciliatory Proposal," 
as it was called, had been received in the colonies and 
it was necessary that Virginia, among other colonies, 
should make reply. Jefferson says: — 

" The tenor of this proposition, being generally known, as having 
been addressed to all the Governors, Peyton Randolph was anxious 
that the answer of our Assembly, likely to be the first, should har- 
monize with what he knew to be the sentiments and wishes of the 
body he had recently left. He feared that Mr. Nicholas, whose 
mind was not yet up to the mark of the times, would undertake 
the answer, and, therefore, pressed me to prepare it. I did so, and 
with his aid, carried it through the House, with long and doubtful 
scruples from Mr. Nicholas and James Mercer, and a dash of cold 
water on it here and there, enfeebling it somewhat, but finally with 
imanimity, or a vote approaching it." 

The salient points of this document were, that the 
British Parliament, not being an American legislative 
assembly, had no right to interfere with civil govern- 
ment in any of the colonies; that Lord North's propo- 
sition involved the idea that the colonies, ''in order to 
secure exemption from an unjust tax, must saddle 
themselves with a self-inflicted perpetual tax," ''ade- 
quate to the expectations and subject to the disposal 



22 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

of Parliament alone;" that "many of the American 
grievances previously stated were taken no note of in 
the proposal, because the ministry were then making 
disposition to invade the colonies;" that the ministry 
did not propose to lay open to them "a, free trade with 
all the world;" and significantly that the proposition 
made to Virginia involved the interest of all the other 
colonies, and that all the colonies were represented in a 
general congress, and that "no partial obligation should 
produce a disunion from the common cause;" that Vir- 
ginia considered herself in honor bound to "share what- 
ever general fate might betide her sister colonies." Thus 
Virginia acknowledged and emphasized our Union. 

The conclusion was the expression of a final deter- 
mination to leave the question to the disposition of the 
general Congress, before whom the House of Burgesses 
would lay the papers. Then speaking for Virginia 
alone occurs this language : 

"For ourselves, we have exhausted every mode of application, 
which our invention could suggest as proper and promising. We 
have decently remonstrated with Parhament — they have added 
new injuries to the old; we have wearied our king with supplica- 
tions — he has not dared to answer us; we have appealed to the 
native honor and justice of the British nation — their efforts in 
our behalf have hitherto been ineffectual; what then remains to be 
done? That we commit our injuries to the even-handed justice 
of that Being, who doeth no wrong, earnestly beseeching Him to 
illuminate the councils and prosper the endeavors of those to whom 
America hath confided her hopes, that through their wise discretion 
we may again see reunited the blessings of liberty, prosperity and 
harmony with Great Britain." 

A similar arraignment of the justice of the British 
people, in the original draft of the Declaration of 



,\- 



THE REVOLUTIONIST 23 

Independence, was stricken out by the Continental 
Congress! 

Jefferson carried Virginia's reply to Lord North with 
him to the Congress at Philadelphia, where we now 
take up the thread of our story. 

John Adams afterwards said that, although Jefferson 
was not a public speaker, owing to his voice (or rather 
lack of voice), he (Adams) found that, '' though a silent 
member of Congress, he was so prompt, frank, explicit 
j and decisive upon committees and in conversation (not 
even Samuel Adams was more so), that he soon seized 
upon my heart." 

This language of a contemporary is recommended 
to the perusal of so-called historians, rough-riding over 
facts. He never "vacillated," nor was "timid," nor 
showed "a sluggish mind" in "the times that tried 
men's souls," nor in the face of any crisis at any time, 
though in non-essentials he was always the most 
yielding of all sweet natures. 

Virginia's answer to Lord North's "Conciliatory 
Proposal," as drawn by Jefferson, "met the views of 
the more advanced members of the Whig party in 
Congress," and "the importance of it was fully meas- 
ured by all," because, if adopted, it would have the 
effect of "closing the door to argument with the mother 
country." It was adopted by Congress. It left us 
two alternatives; a successful redress of grievances by 
arms on the one hand, or subjugation on the other. 

Five days after he took his seat in Congress, Jefferson 
was placed on an existing committee to make a state- 
ment, or declaration, of "the causes of the colonies 
taking up arms." The committee had already made a 



24 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

report, of which the Congress had disapproved; there- 
fore the two new members — Mr. Jefferson of Virginia, 
and Mr. Dickinson of Pennsylvania. Jefferson's pen 
was again called into requisition. He prepared a draft 
for the declaration, but it was too strong for Mr. 
Dickinson, who still retained the hope of reconciliation. 
Jefferson says that Dickinson was ''so honest a man 
and so able," that he "was requested to take the paper 
and put it into a form that he could approve;" that 
Dickinson did it, preserving of Jefferson's declaration 
"only the last four paragraphs and a half;" that the 
committee approved and reported the declaration, as 
thus framed, to Congress, which accepted it. 

Mr. Dickinson belonged to that class of people to 
which Alexander Stephens belonged in the South, at 
the outbreak of the War between the States; men who 
wanted to hang back, who saw the brink before them, 
who feared the jump, but who were so loyal and true 
to their neighbors and friends and states, that when 
the latter once took a stand, they moved up, in shoulder 
to shoulder touch, to stand, until success, or defeat, or 
death should come. 

There was about Jefferson no vanity of authorship. 
This was an illustration of it. It was years after 
Dickinson's "Address on the Cause of Taking up 
Arms" had been welcomed with the huzzahs of the 
American people, before anybody, outside of Congress, 
knew that Jefferson had had any hand in it — indeed, it 
was only after Jefferson's death that his original draft 
was found, and the knowledge became general that the 
last four and a half paragraphs of Dickinson's paper 
were Jefferson's. This address owed its popularity 
chiefly to the last four and a half paragraphs. 



THE REVOLUTIONIST 25 

I will now quote some extracts from Jefferson's para- 
graphs. Remember, it was an address to be read at 
public gatherings and to our armies in the field, and it 
was written with a view to the uses which it should 
serve. I do not know whether you will agree with me 
or not, but I deem these to be noble words, eloquently 
and worthily clothing manly thought : — 

"We are reduced to the alternative of choosing an unconditional 
submission to the tyranny of irritable ministers, or resistance by 
force. The latter is our choice. We have counted the cost of this 
contest, and find nothing so dreadful as voluntary slavery. Honor , 
justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom 
which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent 
posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy 
of resigning succeeding generations to the wretchedness, which 
inevitably awaits them, if we basely entail hereditary bondage upon 
them. Our cause is just. Our union is perfect — our internal 
resources are great, and, if necessary, foreign assistance is undoubtedly 
attainable. . . . With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, 
we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare, that, exerting 
the utmost energy of those powers which our beneficent Creator 
hath graciously bestowed upon us, the' arms we have been compelled 
by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with 
unabated firmness and perseverance, employ for the preservation of 
our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die free men, rather than, 
to live as slaves. 

"Lest this declaration shall disquiet the minds of our friends 
and fellow subjects in any part of the empire, we assure them, that 
we mean not to dissolve that union which has so long and so happily 
subsisted between us, and which we sincerely wish to see restored. 
Necessity has not yet driven t<s into that desperate measure, or induced 
us to excite any other nation to war against them. . . . We fight 
not for glory or for conquest. . . . 

"In our own native land, in defence of the freedom that is our births 
right, and which we ever enjoyed until the late violation of it; for 
the protection of our property, acquired solely by the honest in- 



26 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

dustry of our forefathers and ourselves, and against violence actually 
offered, we have taken up arms. We shall lay them down when 
hostility shall cease on the part of our aggressors and all danger of 
their being renewed shall be removed, and not before." 

These resolutions were submitted to the Continental 
Congress on the 6th day of July, 1775, a year, lacking 
two days, prior to the Declaration of Independence. 
Sixteen days later, Congress selected as usual by 
ballot — the members selected taking priority in 
accordance with the number of votes received — a 
committee to consider and report on Lord North's 
'' ConciUatory Proposal." Jefferson was second on the 
conunittee, the septuagenarian Benjamin Franklin 
alone receiving a higher vote. Mr. Jefferson was 
selected by the committee when it met, to draw up this 
paper. In his Memoir he says: ''The answer of the 
Virginia Assembly on that subject having been ap- 
proved, I was requested by the committee to prepare 
this report, which will account for the similarity of 
features in the two documents." Yes, they were nearly 
alike, but the instrument had broadened and the 
words ''walked statelier," to suit the new and broader 
stage. 

John T. Morse, in his "Thomas Jefferson," says of 
this paper as it passed the Virginia Convention, being 
substantially as it passed Congress later: — 

"This was laying the axe at the very root of the tree with toler- 
able force; and more blows of the same sort followed. 

"These were revolutionary words, and fell short by ever so 
little of that direct declaration of independence which they antici- 
pated by less than two years. They would have cost Jefferson his 
head had it been less inconvenient to bring him to Westminster 



THE REVOLUTIONIST 27 

Hall, and even that inconvenience would probably have been over- 
come had forcible opposition been a little longer deferred in the 
colonies." 

That Jefferson had not surrendered all hope of a 
satisfactory reconciliation with Great Britain, although 
he had gone much further towards planting himself 
upon the solid ground of independency than three- 
fourths of his colleagues, is witnessed by the language 
contained in a letter written by him to John Randolph 
(not he of Roanoke — ''John The Eccentric" — of 
course, but an earlier and a nobler one), who, finding it 
impossible to take up arms against the King, and 
unthinkable to take up arms against his neighbors, 
had sacrificed everything he had in Virginia and gone 
to England — not to fight with her, but to live in 
peace — one of those noble souls willing and able to 
stand and suffer all things alone, rather than take a 
choice between two wrongs, as he saw them. That his 
conduct was mistaken, few can doubt. That it was 
noble and unselfish, his own sacrifices witness. Jef- 
ferson wrote to him a letter from Monticello, dated 
August 25, 1775. In this case, as in all others, Jeffer- 
son never permits his hatred of a course to alienate him 
from a friend. The letter to John Randolph, uncom- 
promisingly, even aggressively patriotic, in every line 
of it, was also uncompromisingly friendly to the 
recipient of it. 

I want you to read that letter. If you are both 
manly and kindly, it will do you good. It aims to get 
Randolph to use his influence to bring about in the 
mother country a juster appreciation of the rights and 
of the earnestness of the colonies. 



28 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

Later, on November 25th, he wrote to the same 
Mr. Randolph, then in England, another letter, from 
which it appears that he had meantime gone several 
steps further towards irrevocable independency. In 
part it reads: — 

"In the early part of this contest, our petitions told him that 
from our King there was but one appeal. The admonition was 
despised, and that appeal forced on us. To undo his empire, he 
has but one truth more to learn; that after colonies have drawn the 
sword, there is but one step more they can take. That step is now 
pressed upon us by the measures adopted, as if they were afraid 
we would not take it. Believe me, dear sir, there is not in the 
British empire, a man who more cordially loves a union with Great 
Britain, than I do. But by the God that made me, I will cease to 
exist before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British 
Parliament proposes; and in this, I think I speak the sentiments of 
America. We want neither inducement nor power, to declare and 
assert a separation. It is will, alone, which is wanting, and that is 
growing apace under the fostering hand of our King." 

Fiske adds as a comment upon this: ''Observe the 
historical accuracy of this wording. It was not a 
question of throwing off a yoke, but of refusing to 
yield to a connection on newfangled and degrading 
terms." 

Jefferson, in his "Notes on Virginia," says, "It is 
well known that in July, 1775, a separation from Great 
Britain and establishment of republican government 
had never yet entered into any person's mind. If 
any period can be fixed, when the idea of independence 
became any more than a thought, or ceased to become 
a mere thought and became in some lines a policy, it 
probably would be the date upon which the com- 
munication from Richard Penn and Arthur Lee, who 



THE REVOLUTIONIST 29 

had been sent to Great Britain to deliver the second 
petition to the King, was received and read in 
Congress." 

This communication from Penn and Lee stated that 
the reply of the King was, that ''no answer would be 
given." This high-handed and contemptuous ignoring 
of a respectfully, even humbly, worded address, caused 
anger and resulted in the conclusion on the part of the 
bolder natures, that the step forward to independence 
must at once be taken. 

Jefferson had long considered the possibility, as his 
pregnant ''as yets" and very many other phrases 
demonstrate. But there is always a step, long or 
short, between considering a thing as a dernier resort, 
and embracing it as a present measure of redress. 

Mr. Adams is simply mistaken when, writing in his 
old age, he says that he had been determined "from the 
first assembling of the Congress in 1775 upon inde- 
pendence," and that "this was no secret in or out of 
Congress." Old men are apt to get dates wrong. 
Adams and Jefferson both did it, when writing in their 
old age about things which occurred in their early 
manhood. Adams' letters, like those of Jefferson, 
which I have quoted, show that, except in so far as it 
was a possibility to be contemplated, if the worst came 
to the worst, independence was not yet urged by any. 
John Jay's and Benjamin Franklin's memories accord 
with Jefferson's. 

The truth is that Americans, as a rule, were almost 
as unwilling to tear themselves from governmental 
connection with the British Isles, as were the "Jackson 
Democrats" and the "Old Line Whigs" in the South, 



30 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

at the beginning of The War between the States to 
"dissolve the bonds that bound" them to the Union, 
and in each case there was an idea of fighting, even if 
bloodshed came, "under the old flag," as abused 
subjects, or citizens, of the old government, rather than 
as citizens of an independent country. 

Indeed, on November 29, 1775, the date of Jefferson's 
second letter to Randolph, Congress itself used this 
language; "that they should rely to the last on heaven 
and their own virtues for security against the abusive 
system pressed by the administration for the ruin of 
America," and that "there is nothing more ardently 
desired by North America than a lasting union with 
Great Britain, on terms of justice and equal liberty.''^ 

As late as December, 1775, the Continental Congress 
speaks of the British constitution as "our best inherit- 
ance." 

Remember all this, when we come to discuss the 
American Counter-Revolution, in the lecture, "Jeffer- 
son the Democratizer of National Administration." 

What Adams in his old age wrote about the circum- 
stances attending the writing of the Declaration of 
Independence was equally inaccurate. 

On August 30, 1823, what Adams wrote having been 
printed, Mr. Jefferson made the following correction: — 

"Mr. Adams' memory has led him into unquestionable error. 
At the age of eighty-eight, and forty-seven years after the trans- 
actions of independence, this is not wonderful. Nor should I, at 
the age of eighty, on the small advantage of that difference only, 
venture to oppose my memory to his, were it not supported by 
written notes taken by myself at the moment and on the spot. . . . 
Now these details are quite incorrect. The Committee of Five met; 
no such thing as a subcommittee was proposed, but they unani- 



THE REVOLUTIONIST 31 

mously pressed on myself alone to undertake the draft. I con- 
sented; I drew it; but before I reported it to the committee, I 
communicated it separately to Doctor Franklin and Mr. Adams, 
requesting their corrections, because they were the two members 
of whose judgments and amendments I wished most to have the 
benefit, before presenting it to the Committee; and you have seen 
the original paper now in my hands, with the corrections of Doctor 
Frankhn and Mr. Adams interlined in their own handwritings. 
Their alterations were two or three only, and merely verbal. I 
then wrote a fair copy, reported it to the Committee, and from 
them, unaltered, to Congress. This personal communication and 
consultation with Mr. Adams he has misremembered into the 
actings of a sub-committee." 

Jefferson gratefully says that Adams was ''the 
colossus of that debate." 

From November, 1775, on, the number of those, who 
had decided upon independence, as the only satis- 
factory issue out of the contest, increased. It is 
wonderful even then how few of our people based their 
contention upon anything more than English statutes 
and customs and traditions — all of doubtful appli- 
cation. Few of them, except Jefferson, went as far as 
Johan Derk van Capellen went in his reply to George 
III, who, having asked the states of Overyssel for 
troops, was answered that Johan Derk thought, ''the 
Americans worthy of every man's esteem," and looked 
upon them as "a brave people, defending in a becoming, 
manly, and religious manner those rights, which, as men, 
they derived from God; not from the legislature of Great 
Britain." 

Thus, though Mr. Jefferson had a hard time at 
home in keeping his phrases "natural rights," and 
"inherent rights," and "rights derived from God," 
and all that, from being stricken out of his public 



32 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

papers as too rhetorical, or too abstract, old Johan 
Derk van Capellen, away over in Overyssel, had the 
American idea and expressed it. 

On May 15, 1776, Virginia, where the King's name 
had been already legislated out of the prayer book and 
the Continental Congress substituted for it, adopted 
her resolutions instructing her representatives in the 
Continental Congress to take the initiative and to 
move independence. Moreover, the House of Bur- 
gesses passed a ''declaration of rights," and ordered 
"a plan of government" to be prepared; in other words, 
a written constitution for Virginia. Significantly Amer- 
ican this written Constitution! The thing had gone 
out of use since the times of the Greek Republics. 

Mr. Jefferson's absence early in May from Phila- 
delphia and his stay in Virginia for nearly four months 
were due to a desire to prepare the public mind in 
Virginia for this step. He remained in Virginia nearly 
four months, at any rate, and then immediately upon his 
return to Congress, was made chairman of the committee 
to consider and report a declaration of independence. 

Richard Henry Lee, on Friday, June 7th, being 
''Dean of the Virginia Delegation in Congress," called 
up the resolutions, which the Virginia House of Bur- 
gesses had instructed the delegates from Virginia to 
present. Their consideration was postponed until the 
next day. They were debated in committee of the 
whole, throughout Saturday and the succeeding Mon- 
day, and then this resolution was passed : — 

"Resolved, That the consideration of the first resolution be 
postponed to Monday, the first of July next; and in the meanwhile, 
in order that no time be lost, in case the Congress agree thereto, 



THE REVOLUTIONIST 33 

that a committee be appointed to prepare a declaration to the 
effect of the first resolution, which is in these words: that these 
colonies are, and of right ought to be, Jree and independent states; 
that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and 
that all political connection between them and the state of Great 
Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved." 

The delay was because Congress, like the old Virginia 
House of Burgesses, was trying ''to keep front and 
rear together." 

It was on the 11th of June, that the committee for 
preparing and reporting a declaration of independence, 
consisting of five members, was chosen, as usual, by 
ballot (the members, by the parliamentary usage of the 
Continental Congress, taking their places upon the 
committee list according to the number of votes cast 
for them, the one receiving the highest vote being ipso 
facto chairman). The committee thus selected con- 
sisted of Thomas Jefferson, first, John Adams, second, 
Benjamin Franklin, third, Roger Sherman, fourth, and 
Robert R. Livingston, fifth. Thus fell to Jefferson the 
glorious task so memorably performed. 

During the last session of the last Congress of the 
United States — such is the legacy of class hatred of 
Jefferson, deceiving good men — a Senator arose in all 
a grave Senator's solemnity — wholly unconscious of 
revamped Federalistic prejudices — and amusingly 
denied that Thomas Jefferson was the author of the 
Declaration of Independence, putting him down as a 
sort of amanuensis or ''secretary" to the committee. 
He also denied that he was "one of the founders of the 
Government." It is not worth while to dwell on his 
first denial. Not only Jefferson's own testimony, but 
that of Franklin and that of Adams, settle in his favor 
4 



34 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

exclusively the authorship of the Declaration of 
Independence. There is more plausibility in the denial, 
that Jefferson was ''one of the founders of our Govern- 
ment," if the word "Government" be taken to mean 
the American Government, under the present Con- 
stitution. Of course, Jefferson was, at the time of the 
formation of the present Constitution, in France. 
But it is also true, as all of us know, that he had a 
great deal of correspondence, especially with Madison, 
and with other Virginians, in favor of the adoption of 
the Constitution, conditioned upon the enactment by 
way of amendment of what now constitute the first 
ten amendments — containing, for the most part, the 
guarantees of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, 
of assembly, and freedom of religion, etc. — in short, 
a bill of rights, and also the vital declaration, that 
''powers not delegated" were ^'reserved to the states 
or the people." His opposition, added to that of 
Henry, Mason and Lee in Virginia, would have defeated 
its adoption there, and prevented the formation of the 
new Government. This was appreciated by Madison 
at the time. His name, authority and letters in favor 
of adoption were invoked and used. Thus, even in 
this sense, Jefferson was one of the "founders" of the 
Government under the present Constitution. It is a 
mistake, however, to say that our Government was 
founded with the present Constitution. The present 
was an "amendment in the nature of a substitute," 
to the old Constitution of our Union. If not founded 
when the first Continental Congress convened, or even 
earlier as a result of the work of the committees of 
correspondence, then "our Government" was founded 



THE REVOLUTIONIST 35 

with the passage of the resolution offered in the name 
and under the instructions of Virginia, by Richard 
Henry Lee. 

This resolution, taken up for consideration by the 
Continental Congress on the 8th of June, was passed, 
as a part of the Declaration of Independence, upon 
July 4, 1776, so that, in a broader sense, Thomas 
Jefferson was not only one of the founders of this 
Government, but was the designer and architect of its 
foundation. 

After that date, there was an authorized legal 
government of these ''United States" — however in- 
efficient, however incongruous, and however pregnant 
with the seed of future dissolution. 

This great Declaration was drawn by Thomas 
Jefferson, when he was thirty-three years of age. But, 
notwithstanding his comparative youth, John Fiske, 
one of the wisest and greatest of American historians, 
says that ''of all the men of that time, there was 
perhaps none of wider culture, or keener political 
instincts. . , . He had always been passionately fond 
of study for its own sake, and to a very wide reading in 
history and in ancient and modern literature, he added 
no mean proficiency in mathematics and in physical 
science. ... He was deeply interested in all the 
generous theories of the eighteenth century, concerning 
the rights of man and the perfectibihty of human 
nature ; and, like most of the contemporary philosophers, 
whom he admired, he was a sturdy foe to intolerance 
and priestcraft. He was, in his way, a much more 
profound thinker than Hamilton, though he had not 
such a constructive genius as the latter; as a political 



36 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

leader he was superior to any other man of his age; and 
his warm sympathies, his ahnost feminine tact, his 
mastery of the dominant poUtical ideas of the time, and, 
above all, his unbounded faith in the common sense of 
the people and in their essential rectitude of purpose, 
served to give him one of the greatest and most com- 
manding positions ever held by any personage in 
American history." 

I do not think that Mr. Fiske had any basis of 
historical fact for the statement that Jefferson was not 
such "& constructive genius," as Hamilton. As far 
as I know, or have thus far in my life been able to 
learn, Hamilton never constructed anything, except a 
scheme for tying the monied classes to the Govern- 
ment, and the government to them — a wedding knot 
that we have ever since been trying to undo. He 
attempted to construct a constitution, peculiarly un- 
American, and alien, then and now, to all the habits 
and thoughts of Americans. In this he totally failed. 
He did not construct even a financial system, but imi- 
tated, as nearly as anyone could dare, a system long 
before constructed in England. He did construct a 
system of bookkeeping in the Treasury Department, 
which has partially remained, as an involved curse, 
though Jefferson and Gallatin managed to rid us of 
much of it, by a process of simplification. But Fiske is 
exactly right when he emphasizes Jefferson's unbounded 
faith in the common sense of the people and in their 
''essential rectitude of purpose," as his great and salient 
characteristic. It is through this characteristic that his 
influence upon American political institutions, adminis- 
trations, and thought has been effectively permanent. 



THE REVOLUTIONIST 37 

In a certain sense, neither Jefferson nor any other 
one man was the author of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. Jefferson was its draftsman, selected for the 
reasons which Fiske states, and selected moreover for 
the reason that the state papers drawn by him in 
Virginia had challenged admiration. But the Declara- 
tion of Independence itself was an evolution of revo- 
lutionary thought and expressed in language, certainly 
not mysterious to its readers, but consonant with their 
ripened convictions — the slow fruition of an intense 
struggle. Jefferson sought to express ideas, which in 
his mind and in the minds of his contemporaries were 
true and sound, in justification to the world of our 
action, and the more he confined himself to generally 
accepted ideas, the more wisely written — because the 
more influential — the docmnent would be. The task 
was to ''give the thought wings." This he did — such 
wings as no other man of his day could have given it — 
such wings as no other political thing has ever yet had. 

Those, who would try to trace back the so-called 
"glittering generalities" of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence to French theorists and all that, are not 
people who are particularly learned, but are, on this 
subject, particularly ignorant. The EngHsh-speaking 
race, in that species of political philosophy, did not 
follow, but preceded France. If any doubter wants to 
satisfy himself upon that subject, let him read John 
Locke's "Treatises of Government," Sidney's "Dis- 
courses on Government," and John Milton's "Tenure 
of Kings and Magistrates," and his "Defense of the 
Enghsh People." 

Moreover, the fact remains, that if the English 



38 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

sources had not existed, these convictions would have 
developed themselves necessarily from our conditions. 
Our institutions and our constitutions are the product 
of American experience, buttressed by such written 
authority and historical examples as we could find in 
the world. A part of that experience was, of course, 
our experience as a part of the English-speaking race, 
before we landed on these shores. 

Jefferson here and always diametrically opposed 
Rousseau's central principle, that men on coming under 
government "voluntarily surrender" to ''majorities" 
their "natural rights. " Jefferson's' view was that these 
natural rights were inalienable, and therefore could not 
be parted with, even voluntarily, by any generation of 
men. Each generation was born to them. He as- 
serted that government was formed to protect those 
rights, and, if need be, even against majorities, whose 
"rule to be right must be just." (See First Inaugural.) 

It may be true that in other places, there was no- 
where an actual, historically-recorded social contract, as 
the source of government. But there was in America. 
Yet the theory, that men are equal as regards their 
"natural rights," and that the basis of all just govern- 
ment is voluntary, and contractual, was not all original 
with our English or American forefathers. It went 
back to the Roman law; being expressed in so many 
words in the Roman Digest (L. 17, 32), pubhshed three 
and a quarter centuries after Christ, and is asserted by 
Professor Otto Gierke to have been "an axiom of 
political theory from the end of the thirteenth century." 
All this is found abundantly amplified in Mr. Merriam's 
"American PoUtical Theories." 



THE REVOLUTIONIST 39 

What was new in America was not the doctrine, nor 
theory as a basis for reasoning, but the object lesson of 
it. I cannot too often emphasize the thought, that 
this was due to the fact that we had om* beginnings in 
the woods. 

Merwin says of the Declaration of Independence that 
''both as a political and a literary document, it has 
stood the test of time. It has all the classic qualities 
of an oration by Demosthenes; and even in that passage 
in which it has been criticized — that, namely, which 
pronounced all men to be created equal — is true in a 
sense, the truth of which it will take a century or two 
yet to develop." 

In fact, a peculiar excellence of this and many other 
utterances of Mr. Jefferson is, that in them lie thoughts 
in advance of his time — germs destined to multiply 
and take possession. Here and there he puts in ''a 
little leaven," which, at the time, is hardly noticed, but 
will later ''leaven the whole lump." 

It remained for Lincoln later on to take up what 
were called the ''glittering generalities" of the Decla- 
ration of Independence, to muster them into practical 
political service, saying that they were meant "to 
declare the right, so that enforcement of it might follow, 
as soon as circumstances should permit," and that their 
expression had been "constantly looked to, constantly 
labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, 
constantly approximated, and thereby constantly 
spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting 
the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors 
everywhere." 

As we have seen, Mr. Jefferson, before submitting his 



40 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

draft of the Declaration of Independence to the full 
committee, communicated it separately to Franklin and 
Adams. They made two or three suggestions, merely 
verbal, and these were adopted. 

The original paper in Jefferson's handwriting, with 
Adams's and Franklin's interlineations, is in Washing- 
ton. It has been frequently published in Jac simile and 
is a thing of common knowledge. Mr. Adams is thus 
mistaken in saying that he himself did not make or 
suggest a single alteration. He and Franklin each 
suggested some purely verbal changes, which Jefferson 
at once accepted. With regard to matters of which he 
had personal knowledge, Jefferson's memory was 
almost invariably accurate. A man hunting incon- 
sistencies of opinion wherewith to charge him would 
find his labors somewhat rewarded, as he would con- 
cerning any other man possessed of a growing intellect 
and a progressive character. 

When the draft reached Congress, those passages 
which censured the people of England were stricken 
out, and the clause which censured the King for acts en- 
slaving inhabitants of Africa and bringing them to the 
shores of America was also stricken out. Jefferson 
says, that this was done '4n complaisance to South 
Carolina and Georgia," adding: ''Our northern brethren 
also, I believe, felt a little tender under these censures; 
for though their people had very few slaves themselves, 
yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them 
to others." 

Whatever may be said of the policy of Congress in 
striking out that part of the Declaration which censured 
the people of England, it cannot be said, that it made 



THE REVOLUTIONIST 41 

the Declaration to accord better with the facts of 
history. As it is, George III and Parhament alone 
are held up to blame. There is no doubt about the 
fact that, at the beginning, at any rate, and until very 
near the end of the struggle, the people of England were 
in accord with their King and Parliament. 

Lord John Russell, in his ''Life of Fox," Volume 1, 
page 134, makes this clear. Jefferson, as usual, was 
right, and his correctors wrong. He was right, too, 
with regard to that part of the draft, which referred 
to the slave trade. Whatever may have been the case 
in other colonies, in Virginia, at any rate, the utmost 
effort had been made to stop it; a half score or more of 
acts had been passed, only to be vetoed by royal 
governors under royal instructions. 

Concerning the Declaration itself, Adams later, in a 
letter to Pickering, in the year 1822, says: "As you 
justly observe, there is not an idea in it but what had 
been hackneyed in Congress for two years before." 
He adds: ''The substance of it is contained in the 
declaration of rights, ... in the Journals of Congress 
in 1774. Indeed, the essence of it is contained in a 
pamphlet, voted and printed by the town of Boston, 
before the first Congress met, composed by James Otis, 
as I suppose, in one of his lucid intervals, and pruned 
and polished by Samuel Adams." 

Mr. Jefferson, on seeing this — which had been 
greedily published by Pickering — with a forbearance 
characteristic of him, when dealing with Mr. Adams, 
except for a few brief months of his life, when he was 
provoked into retahatory utterances — nobly and 
modestly said: — 



42 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

"Pickering's observations, and Mr. Adams's in addition, 'that 
it contained no new ideas, that it is a commonplace compilation, 
its sentiments hackneyed in Congress for two years before, and its 
essence contained in Otis's pamplilet,' may all be true. Of that I 
am not to be the judge. Richard Henry Lee charged it, as copied 
from Locke's 'Treatise on Government.' . . . Otis's pamphlet I 
never saw, and whether I had gathered my ideas from reading or 
reflection, I do not know. I know only that I turned to neither 
book nor pamphlet, while writing it. I did not consider it, as any 
part of my charge, to invent new ideas altogether, and to offer no 
sentiment which had ever been expressed before. . . . Whether, 
also, the sentiments of independence, and the reasons for declaring 
it, which made so great a portion of the instrument, had been hack- 
neyed in Congress for two years before the 4th of July, '76, or this 
dictum also of Mr. Adams be another slip of memory, let history 
say. This, however, I will say for Mr. Adams, that he supported 
the Declaration with zeal and abiUty, fighting fearlessly for every 
word of it." 

The curious reader may consult the pamphlet of 
James Otis, the Declaration of Rights and the Journals 
of Congress, and determine for himself how far Mr. 
Adams's afterthought was well founded. He will find 
it in no true sense justified. If any pubhcation fur- 
nished more than another foundation for the Decla- 
ration, it was Jefferson's own ''Summary View of the 
Rights of British America," and his ''Reply to Lord 
North's Conciliatory Proposal." Another truth is 
that the Committee on Rights and Grievances, whose 
report was drawn by John Adams, in September, 1774, 
contained substantially much that was in Jefferson's 
" Summary View." The " Summary View " was pre- 
sented to the Convention of Virginia before the Congress 
of 1774 met, and the Conmiittee of Rights and Griev- 
ances had access to that paper. Thus the borrowing, if 



THE REVOLUTIONIST 43 

there were any conscious borrowing, was a borrowing by- 
Adams from Jefferson, and not the other way. There 
is, however, no plagiarism in either. Jefferson had 
neither paper, book, nor pamphlet before him when he 
wrote the Declaration, and it is presumbably also a fact 
that Mr. Adams had none when he wrote the Report on 
Rights and Grievances, though both had in their minds 
many fixed and popular ideas, which had become trite, 
and, many of them, ideas advanced and rendered popu- 
lar by Jefferson in his "Summary View," so widely 
disseminated not only in America but in England. 

The Declaration accomplished its end. It went to 
the comprehension of the average man with over- 
whelming force. It was full of ''keynote phrases." 
It was ''quotable" — began at once to be quoted and 
has been ever since. Every American became a Dick 
Swiveller of its phrases. It gave unity of expression 
to the American people. It was received everywhere 
with enthusiasm; ordered to be read at the head of the 
armed forces; people, after hearing it, tore down 
statues and pictures of the king and of colonial gover- 
nors. They also welcomed it in churches with prayers 
and sermons. 

We have seen that when the Virginia Convention 
instructed their delegates in Congress to introduce a 
resolution declaring American independence, they 
also appointed a committee to draw up a "decla- 
ration of rights," as they called it, and a "plan of 
government" for Virginia. Mr. Jefferson prepared 
and forwarded from Philadelphia the outline of a plan. 
It reached Virginia too late, because the Bill of Rights 
and the Constitution of Virginia had been agreed to, 



44 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

but the lofty preamble of Mr. Jefferson's plan pleased 
the committee so much, that they prefaced it to the 
great work of George Mason — the first Constitution 
of Virginia, and the first in America to be written by 
the representatives of the people — which was passed 
on June 20, 1776, the day after the draft of the Decla- 
ration of Independence was reported to the Continental 
Congress. This preamble was drawn by Jefferson, 
therefore, prior to his composition of the Declaration. 
He says, after dwelling upon that fact: "Both having 
the same object, of justifying our separation from 
Great Britain, they used necessarily the same materials 
of justification, and hence their similitude," 

I mention this, because in the constant efforts of 
those who hated and hate democracy to write Jefferson 
down in his lifetime and after his death, every little 
thing has been taken advantage of, in the attempt to 
decrease his credit, and among other things, he was 
accused of having plagiarized parts of the Declaration 
from the Preamble of The Constitution of Virginia; in 
other words, from himself. 

The opening sentences of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence are frequently referred to as a part of some 
sort of French infection. In the first place, the French 
revolution had not begun, and, in the second place, there 
is not an idea contained in it, that is not purely Jeffer- 
sonian. 

By the way, I love very much a phrase which Fiske 
uses as the caption of one of his chapters: "Thomas 
Jefferson, The Conservative Reformer." 

This quotation from it, I recommend to all readers: — 



THE REVOLUTIONIST 45 

"Because in later years Jefferson came to be the head of a party 
which sympathized with revolutionary France, there has come into 
existence a legendary view of him as a sort of French doctrinaire 
poUtician and disciple of Rousseau. Nothing could be more 
grotesquely absurd. Jefferson was broad enough to learn lessons 
from France, but he was no Frenchman in his pohtics; and we shall 
not understand him until we see in him simply the earnest, but cool- 
headed, representative of the rural English freeholders, that won 
Magna Charta and overthrew the usurpations of the Stuarts." 

Cornelius de Witt, after analyzing much of the 
historical and legal parts of the Declaration, says : — 

"The other principle was that of the rights of man. The 
Declaration of Independence contained a list of rights, such as were 
familiar to the colonists of England, but were only theories elsewhere. 
The success of the Revolution was, therefore, a shock to the system 
of privilege and of class exemptions from the common burdens, 
which had lasted since feudal times. The French Revolution of 
1789 was an attempt to apply upon alien ground the principles of the 
American Revolution." (Itahcs mine here and always.) 

If there was any drawing of ideas either way, the 
French revolutionists drew from America and from the 
Declaration of Independence. Many of the French 
officers and soldiers went back to France with ideas, 
which, perhaps, would have been altogether unfamiliar 
to them — except for their sojourn in America. It 
may be a ''glittering generality" — I don't know — 
but I rather regard it as a golden actuality, founded 
upon everlasting truth, that men are ''endowed by 
their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among 
which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," 
if only the last be honest, pure, peaceable and fair. 

Nor do I regard the latter part of that clause in the 
Constitution, which says that all powers not delegated 



46 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

to the federal government are reserved to the states 
respectively ''and to the people," as a "glittering 
generality." I do understand this clause reserving 
certain rights "to the people," to mean just this class 
of natural and inalienable rights — antedating and 
superior to all governmental authority. In this class 
are freedom of reUgion, freedom of speech, freedom of 
association, the right of petition, freedom from un- 
reasonable search and arrest — in fact, everything in 
that vast realm where the individual is his own governor, 
and responsible only to God — a realm whose bound- 
aries are located just where the exercise of his freedom 
begins to interfere with the right of others to preserve 
their life, or limb, or property honestly acquired. I 
count it a great happiness for the American people, that 
they did not base their claims altogether upon the 
rights of British subjects and upon the black-letter of 
the law books, but, fundamentally, upon the natural 
rights of man, and especially upon the right of any 
community, for a reason seeming necessary to that 
community, to change the form, or set aside the 
substance of a government, unjust and oppressive, and 
to establish in its stead one concordant with the 
public welfare, with human freedom, with equality of 
rights and opportunities, and equal administration of 
justice; a new government, "deriving its just powers 
from the consent of the governed." As Merriam well 
says: this theory that governments derive their just 
powers from the consent of the governed "could hardly 
be called a theory at all." It is the American "working 
hypothesis." 

Not only did the individual have under it certain 



THE REVOLUTIONIST 47 

rights, that were inherent and inalienable, but out of 
this grew e converso the fundamental principle, that the 
sovereignty of the people is inherent and inalienable, 
with regard to things not fundamentally individual, or, 
as Roger Williams said, things not ''of the first table." 
Many people wonder why it was that so many people 
in the South, and especially in the border States, denied 
''the right of peaceful secession," and said that there 
was no law for it, either statutory or constitutional, yet 
"went with their States." They stood upon "the 
right of revolution" — the right of a people of a State, 
if in their opinion the federal government became sec- 
tional, oppressive or unjust — or threatened to become 
so — to throw it off; to "dissolve the ties that bound 
them to it," as the phrase went, and, if opposed in this, 
to take the field in armed assertion of their right to be 
permitted "to go in peace," as Sweden of late permitted 
Norway to go. This was the view of my own father. 
It is easily explicable, if you will remember, that these 
people, perhaps more than any other, were permeated 
with the political theory of the revolutionary period, 
although perhaps the most radical utterances of this 
theory earlier in our history had come from New 
England. Practically, of course, this sort of right 
rests ultimately on the acquiescence of others, or else 
upon the power of the community to assert it success- 
fully with arms in its hands. But it is not too much 
to say that the more moderate expression of the idea — 
still radical, but not so extremely radical — contained 
in Jefferson's ringing words in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence — was almost universally entertained in 
America in his time. In fact, most Revolution-time 



48 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

Tories denied only that the exigency had come to 
justify the exercise of "the right of revolution," and 
either denied the grievances, or else asserted that 
grievances could be redressed more certainly and 
safely without resorting to so extreme a revolution as 
independence. A like opinion was that of many 
Union men in the South — some 300,000 of them in 
the Union armies — who fought and some died — 
acknowledging the right, and denying that the occasion 
justified its invocation. This more moderate expres- 
sion contained in the Declaration is, in these words, 
familiar to all: '^ Whenever any form of government 
becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the 
people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new 
government, laying its foundations on such principles, 
and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall 
seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." 

Pennsylvania, in her j&rst constitution, asserted that 
"the community hath an indubitable, inalienable and 
indefeasible right to alter, reform or abolish govern- 
ment in such manner as shall by that community be 
judged most conducive to the common weal." By 
the way, I like that old expression, "the common 
weal." I once used it in the draft of a plank in a 
Democratic national platform and the "finishers," 
supposing that I had made a sUp of the pen, changed it 
to "commonwealth!" 

This very theory grew out of the doctrine of delegated 
powers — the doctrine that all governmental power is 
delegated by the people, in whom it ultimately resides; that 
there are rightfully no inherent governmental powers; 
that government is the grantee of powers, and not the 



THE REVOLUTIONIST 49 

grantor of rights; that it is merely the agent, or servant, 
of the people; a trustee acting (if acting rightly) for 
the people, and not for itself. Our forefathers knew 
the danger of excess of government and were bent 
upon so simplifying, limiting and checking it, that it 
must forever remain a servant and could never become 
a master. [My reading of history convinces me that 
most bad government has grown out of too much 
government. It is a sort of inherent characteristic 
of all government, as of all conscious organisms, yearly 
and almost daily, to take to itself more and more 
jurisdiction, to increase the force and weight and 
numbers of officialdom, until, after a while, the structure 
becomes topheavy, and must fall by its own weight; 
or else, upon the other hand — remaining administra- 
tively efficient — it holds the people in servile sub- 
jection. I know of no government, which has ever 
once been strong and then fallen (except where it has 
been conquered by outside force), that did not go to 
its ruin because it had become gradually, even insidi- 
ously, cumbersome, topheavy, unwieldy, complicated, 
almost incomprehensible; in a word, had assumed to 
itself more powers than could possibly be wisely 
administered by falUble men. Tom Jefferson did not 
attach a particle too much importance to the simpli- 
fication of official life and governmental machinery. 
In him, as has been well said, was ''crystaUized the 
common American sentiment." 

The main difference between Jefferson and his 
opponents — as well as between him and the other 
extreme, Rousseau and his school — is this; both 
schools opposed by him contended that we gave up 

5 



50 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

certain "natural rights" when we formed our govern- 
ment — one to "government" and the other to 
majorities. He contended that the business of govern- 
ment was to make these natural rights more secure; 
that its chief business was to be a fence around them 
and a bulwark of protection for them. In his view, 
government is not an end, but a means — a means to 
defend and increase the liberty and happiness of the 
men and women Uving in the country governed, who, 
however, are the safest, and the only rightful guardians 
of their own private concerns; that government is 
good in proportion as it is responsible to and super- 
visable by the people. 

Jefferson maintained truthfully, too, I think, that 
men were divided politically into two classes; those 
who fear and distrust the people, and those who 
identify themselves with the people, as a part of them. 

I heard Governor Woodrow Wilson once express it 
very well in designating the first class as men, who 
spoke of "the people" as something outside — beyond 
themselves. There is nothing more significant than 
one's way of looking upon the people; one man looks at 
them as an alien thing, and another sees himself in 
them, or perhaps better, sees them glassed in himself. 

In a letter to Du Pont de Nemours, which may be 
found in Jefferson's "Works," Volume 10, page 23 
(Washington edition), we find this language: "We both 
love the people, but you love them as infants, whom 
you are afraid to trust without nurses, and I as adults, 
whom I freely leave to self-government." 

Of course, no sincere man ever professed perfect 
confidence in the people doing the right thing at all 



THE REVOLUTIONIST 51 

times, but the difference is one of degrees of approxi- 
mation to perfect and perpetual confidence. Men like 
Hamilton habitually distrusted the masses, because 
they sincerely did not believe that the masses had 
brains enough to understand things, and to do them. 
They wanted strong government to restrain the people. 
Men like Jefferson wanted a strong people, to restrain 
the government, and knew that the moral sense, inborn 
in men, has as much to do with right government as 
intellect or any other one thing. 

The fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of 
Independence, the day upon which he and John Adams 
were destined each to draw his last breath, was ap- 
proaching. The Mayor of the city of Washington, 
in the name of its citizens, had invited Jefferson to be 
present at its celebration in that city. On June 24, 
1826, he wrote a letter to the Mayor, a Mr. Weightman. 
In that letter, speaking of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, he says : — 

"May it be to the world, what I believe it will be (to some parts 
sooner, to others later, but finally to all), the signal of arousing men 
to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition 
had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings 
and security of self-government. That form which we have sub- 
stituted restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason 
and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the 
rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already 
laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind 
have not been bom with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few 
booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, and by the 
grace of God. There are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, 
let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections 
of these rights, and inspire an undiminished devotion to them." 



52 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

Note: It is the "Rights of Man" yet, as in his youth. 
It is no ''glittering generality" to him. God grant 
that it may never be so to us! 

This again indicates how Jefferson's mind inevitably 
refused to confine its vision, when contemplating the 
blessings of liberty and democracy, to American 
territory, and how invariably it wandered out to the 
utmost confines of the earth, wherever there were men 
with rights to assert and with duties to perform. His 
was, in the broadest and finest sense, a world-democ- 
racy. He appreciated, too, what few men appreciated, 
when he wrote them, that the broad abstract expres- 
sions of the Declaration constituted a logos; a word to 
go out, a germ to grow rather than a statute presently 
to demark. 

Like so many old men, when dying, his mind went 
back to the scenes of activity in which he had been 
engaged in his early manhood. Partially arising in the 
bed, and using his right hand, as if writing upon a 
tablet held in his left, he exclaimed: ''Warn the com- 
mittee to be on the alert!" It was like Stonewall Jack- 
son's exclamation, "Order A. P. Hill to prepare for 
action!" "Warn the committee to be on the alert!" 
What committee? Doubtless, one of the old committees 
of safety of the revolutionary day, who not only con- 
stituted a provisional government, but exercised 
disciplinary authority over the disaffected and the 
disloyal, and whose duty it was to defeat any counter- 
revolutionary movements or combinations. "The rul- 
ing passion was strong in death," and we may be 
sure that Jefferson's right hand had written many a 
message similar to this last exclamation. 



THE REVOLUTIONIST 53 

Mr. Merriam informs us that "by the later thinkers 
the idea that men possess inherent and inahenable 
rights of a political or quasi-political character, which 
are independent of the state, has been generally given 
up." Pity it is, if true! He adds in another place that 
"the present tendency in American political theory is 
to disregard the once dominant ideas of natural rights 
and of the social contract, although it must be admitted 
that the political scientists are more agreed upon this 
point than is the general public." I should hope so! 
I would hate to see the idea prevail among the people 
that liberties are a grant of government, instead of 
government being a delegation of power by the people, 
and I predict it never will until the downfall of this 
"Republic of Lesser Republics." 

Some of the latter-day political "scientists" seem 
to want the world governed by experts. One of them 
speaks of a "central academy of science, which shall 
stand in the same relation to the control of men, in 
which a polytechnic institute stands to the control of 
nature!" In other words, individual rights and 
liberties are to count for nothing in comparison with 
scientific efficiency of bureaucratic administration. 
One of them does admit that "social interference" 
(that is, governmental interference) "should not be so 
paternal, as to check the self-extinction of the morally 
ill-constituted; . . . nor should it so limit the struggle 
for existence, as to nullify the selective process." 
Thank God for small favors! The right of self- 
extinguishment at least is still left us by college govern- 
mental scientists! 

These people, it seems to me, forget the two great- 



54 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

est of facts — God and The Man. They forget the 
Individual, who is born and comes into the world, and 
who dies and goes out of it alone, with no company 
save the Divine Individuality. However, I suppose a 
reference to that is ''unscientific." 

There is an American political theory, right or wrong, 
and it is Jefiferson's theory. When he overcame the 
Counter-Revolution, he made it ours by a new birth — 
a regeneration. 

It is a curious thing that no new party has broken 
away from the old ones without founding itself allegedly 
upon the views of Thomas Jefferson and the doctrines 
of the Declaration of Independence, and that just in 
the measure that old parties desert them, just in that 
measure can you forecast their defeat. This was the 
case, of course, with Democratic-Republicans — the 
party founded by Jefferson. It was the pretention of 
the early Whigs. It was the assertion of the early 
Republicans, and notably of Abraham Lincoln; and it 
is curious that in the so-called "Bull Moose" Con- 
vention — during this year, Jefferson's portrait was 
hung conspicuously high, and the party pretended 
to draw faith from him, notwithstanding all the 
sneering and unjust things that had been written about 
Jefferson by Mr. Roosevelt, its candidate. This 
Declaration of Independence was a summary expres- 
sion, in Jefferson's words and manner, of what had 
become the conomon and characteristic thought of a 
majority of the American people, and was intensely 
his own. It remains the common thought of the 
American people, and constitutes the Soul-Politic, 
which dwells within and animates and energizes our 
Body-PoUtic. 



THE REVOLUTIONIST 55 

The salient points of this theory are: first, natural, 
inalienable, God-given individual rights — ''the things 
of the first table;" secondly, local self-government, 
with most numerous and important powers conferred 
upon that part of the government, which is nearest the 
individual citizen — with less and less power delegated 
to each other government which controls him, in pro- 
portion as it is further away; until finally, the least of 
all jurisdiction is delegated to that government, which 
is most distant from him and which he can watch least 
well, and which can know least well his wants and 
interests. 

The Jeffersonian theory involves a distinct demar- 
cation between state and national powers. It involves, 
yes, necessitates, an educational system to inform a 
public opinion, which shall thereby become fit to rule 
and govern. To this I shall refer later. 

None of the attacks upon democracy, based upon the 
errors and impulses and the wild passions of revolution- 
ists in France, South America, or elsewhere, has ever 
for long shaken the American people's confidence in 
their doctrine. 

It is curious that, while American writers have 
deceived themselves so much about the source of the 
principles which actuated Thomas Jefferson, referring 
many of his opinions back to the French philosophers, 
etc., the French writers, as a rule, make no such mistake. 
Cornelius de Witt, who had made some study of our 
revolutionary period, says : — 

"Sauf Montesquieu, nos ^crivains y ^taient peu lus et peu cit^s. 
Coke, Milton, Locke, Grotius, et surtout la Bible, la grande charte, 
le common law, I'histoire d'Angleterre, les chartes et les histoires 



56 PERIVIANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

locales, telles furent Ics autorit^s qu' invoqu^rent les tribuns, les 
pr^dicateurs et les pamphl6taires qui exciterent le peuple amdricain a 
combattre pour ses droits. Je n'ai jamais recontrd dans leur bouche, 
ni le nom de Rousseau, ni I'expression du souverainetd du peuple." 

2. IN FRANCE 

How much influence Jefferson had upon the actors 
in the early stages of the French Revolution nobody will 
ever know. Both the modesty of the man and his 
delicate situation as Minister to France prevented his 
teUing it. But on July 9, 1789, the Duke of Dorset, 
British Ambassador at Paris, wrote to the Prime 
Minister: ''Mr. Jefferson, the American Ambassador 
at this court, has been a great deal consulted by the 
principal leaders of the Tiers Etat; and I have great 
reason to think that it is owing to his advice that the 
order called itself L'Assemblee Nationale." If so, 
this was the initial step, without taking which the 
Third Estate and democracy were lost. It was 
the sine qua non of all that came after. 

In a letter to Madison in 1789, Jefferson speaks of the 
French revolutionists regarding us as "a model for 
their imitation," and says: "Our [authority] has been 
treated Uke that of the Bible, open to explanation, but 
not to question." 

The American Revolution had been in a double sense 
one of the causes of the French Revolution. First, it 
sent back to France besides private soldiers, who had 
opened wide their eyes at the spectacle of a country 
without nobility or peasants, also young captains and 
colonels and majors and a few generals even — gen- 
erally of the poorer nobility — who had caught the 
American spirit and found it incompatible with the 



THE REVOLUTIONIST 57 

ancien regime and preferable to it. But it was a cause 
of the French Revolution in another and sadder sense. 
The American war had cost the court of France a great 
deal of money, had contributed to the consumption of 
its funds on hand, almost to the destruction of its 
credit. 

We may imagine how Jefferson, whose Declaration 
of Independence, whose " Summary View," whose pre- 
amble to the Virginia Constitution, whose statute of 
Religious Freedom, and, finally, whose liberal senti- 
ments scattered here and there in the " Notes on Vir- 
ginia " had made him a forerunner in the expression and 
advocacy of ''the rights of man," became the con- 
sultee and counsellor of the so-called patriotic party. 
His habit of arriving at political principles by deduction, 
while also relying on legal and historical authority, was 
a habit which he carried to France and did not bring 
away from there, except in the shape in which he had 
carried it. The former is a Celtic trait. Jefferson was 
Welsh — a Celt. But it did not turn his head. In fact, 
his advice to the French revolutionists — to Lafayette 
especially — was upon much more conservative lines 
than any declaration of policy ever made by him in 
America, than any political act of his in America. 
In France, as in America, he reasoned that the best 
attainable should be procured, and he realized that 
the best attainable in France at that time was far, far, 
behind the best attainable in America. Cornelius de 
Witt says that ''it was in Paris Jefferson learned to 
abhor the whole social organization of Europe and 
everything appertaining to it still existing in America; 
it was in Paris that he learned to hate the power both 



58 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

of the aristocracy and clergy, which till then he had 
opposed without any irritation." And Hazen, in his 
''Thomas Jefferson and the French Revolution," says 
that, after his stay in France, his utterances became 
"not the sober thought of a judge, but rather the war 
cry of the republican mihtant." 

Through it all, he seems to have seen clearly that for 
which the French people were "ripe," to use his favorite 
word. Jefferson knew the great truth, that a given 
thing may be a bad thing for one place and time, and a 
good thing for another. Hence he advised the British 
model as a working initiative government for the 
French, while he afterwards in America spent his whole 
hfe denouncing the same model, as a thoroughly unfit 
thing for the American people, who had long since 
passed the stage of growth, when that suit of clothes 
could fit them. I find no more inconsistency in this 
than in a physician's giving a delirium tremens patient 
moderate doses of whiskey, that he may not die from 
shock to his system, by sudden change. 

Those who dwell upon the failure of the French 
Revolution to accomplish step-by-step progress without 
violence, and call Jefferson a doctrinaire, because he 
hoped it, forget that the experiment was tried under 
more unfavorable circumstances than perhaps a similar 
experiment was ever tried anywhere else. In a bread 
famine, during an unprecedented cold winter, amidst 
the clash of arms, with desperate and reckless traitors 
to be put down at home, it would have been a miracle, 
if an untrained crew upon the ship "Institutional 
Reform" had been held in discipline. 

Up to the time that Jefferson left France, there was 



THE REVOLUTIONIST 59 

doubt, of course, and apprehension of failure, which he 
himself expressed, but there was no reason to despair of 
a successful issue. 

Hazen concludes that Jefferson "sailed for home with 
the conviction that within a year one of the greatest of 
recorded revolutions would have been effected without 
bloodshed." This is inaccurate. Had he said, "with 
the hope," instead of "with the conviction," he would 
have been right, for Jefferson's letters from France are 
full of expressions of uneasiness and apprehension. 
Hazen adds: "And when the bloodshed began in grim 
earnest, he refused to see its significance, minimized its 
importance, and was reluctant to believe that a beautiful 
dream might become a hideous, repulsive monstrosity." 
If all this were true, it would not be to Jefferson's 
discredit. But it is not true. He did see its sig- 
nificance; he did regret its necessary bearing; he did see 
the present "hideous, repulsive monstrosity," but he 
saw something behind it, or rather ahead of it. He 
saw the ultimate issue — liberty and a new era — not 
only for France, but for the European race. He 
minimized the "present hideousness" only in the 
sense that he thought the ultimate result was worth 
purchasing, even at the cost of such days of terror, as 
seemed in the providence of God necessary to be 
endured, in order to topple over despotism, special 
privilege, priestcraft, and all forms of rule by the 
"booted and spurred," trained to believe that the 
masses of mankind are "bridled and saddled." Most 
of us see now what Jefferson saw then, and what Burke 
did not, and Adams did not, and Hamilton did not see. 
He was one of the very few well-born, wealthy and 



60 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

respected men in America to see it then. Not as many 
lives were lost by the guillotine as in many a single 
battle, fought about next to nothing and in some few 
battles fought to maintain the amour propre of a king's 
mistress. Nor were there as many lives lost by the 
guillotine, probably, as many a single generation of 
kings and nobles and priests had snuffed out, in an 
equal length of time, as the result of poverty, neglect, 
insanitation, and overtaxation, caused by general mis- 
government. 

Jefferson saw all this — all honor to him for having 
seen it, and for having refused to permit himself and 
his followers in America to be dragged into a senseless 
American counter-revolution, because a people blindly 
and brutally striving for liberty in France had tempo- 
rarily failed, and had failed no more by their own 
ignorance and cruelty, than by the hostile coalescence 
of kings, and of beneficiaries of special privilege, all 
over Europe. It must never be forgotten that the 
domestic violence in France was but a protest — blind, 
unreasoning, barbarous — but still a protest, against 
this coalescence between privileged enemies of popular 
right at home and the beneficiaries of monarchical, 
aristocratic, and plutocratic privilege abroad — kings, 
nobles, ecclesiastics, and fund-holders. Truly Jefferson 
came back from France ''a repubhcan mihtant.'' 
Happy for us that he was in France, so to come back! 

A letter to Mr. Short, dated January 3, 1793, shows 
how Jefferson, unlike so many other intelhgent men in 
America and in England, saw, beyond the struggle and 
the bloodshed, to the hoped-for issue itself — saw the 
things that were to be permanent and not temporary. 



THE REVOLUTIONIST 61 

After describing how the French people had become 
Jacobins by the almost necessary stress and drive of 
circumstance, he says : — 

"In the struggle, which was necessary, many guilty persons 
fell without the forms of trial, and with them some innocent. 
These I deplore as much as anybody, and shall deplore some of 
them to the day of my death. But I deplore them, as I should 
have done had they fallen in battle. It was necessary to use the 
arm of the people — a machine not quite so blind as balls and 
bombs — but blind to a certain degree. A few of their cordial 
friends met at their hands the fate of enemies. But time and truth 
will rescue and embalm their memory, while their posterity will 
be enjoying that very Uberty for which they would never have 
hesitated to offer up their Uves. The liberty of the whole earth was 
depending upon the issue of that contest. Was ever such a prize won 
with so Uttle innocent blood?" 

By this time Gouverneur Morris was in Paris and was 
becoming very ''properly" ''disgusted" with the fact 
that "booksellers and venders of skins and grocers" 
were being placed in civil office! It was not to be 
long before John Adams would in America voice this 
same high-flown contempt for conmaon folks. We 
find Mr. Morris about this time — at least his Memoir 
says so — urging Lafayette "to preserve, if possible, 
some constitutional authority to the body of the 
nobles, as the one means of preserving any liberty for 
the people." Isn't that "going some" for an Ameri- 
can, who almost thus far had been getting on very well 
without having ever met a nobleman, except of the 
God-made sort? We find him commenting unfavorably 
upon the fact that "Jefferson, with all the leaders of 
Uberty here, is desirous of annihilating distinctions of 



62 PERIVIANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

order"! This was not quite true, as a matter of fact, 
because Jefferson had not yet thought it wise to go that 
far in France. He was emphatically urging, however, 
the withdrawal of the hurtful special privileges of the 
clergy and nobility, which exempted them from taxation '\ 
and made all the heavy services and taxes fall upon the 
poor. 

Jefferson did not confide in Morris, who knew nothing 
of what he wanted. At that very time and up to the 
day he left France he behoved that France was not 
yet ready for anything more than a limited consti- 
tutional monarchy. As late as November 18, 1788, he 
says, in a letter to Mr. Madison speaking of the French 
people: "The misfortune is that they are not yet ripe 
to receive the blessings to which they are entitled." 

He, nearly first of all English-speaking great men, 
saw the immense influence of the example of France 
upon the civihzation of the world. He writes: "I con- 
sidered a successful reformation of government in 
France as insuring a general reformation through 
Europe, and the resurrection to new life of their people 
now ground to dust by the abuses of the governing 
powers." Long afterwards it came to be a generally 
recognized fact that convulsions in France were always 
followed by convulsions all over Europe — as in 1830 
and 1848. 

It was doubtful if, in advising an understanding with 
the court, on the limited monarchy basis, Jefferson was 
wise. The fight had by now gone too far. It had 
recently become evident that the sincerity of the 
court and of the courtiers simply could not be relied 



THE REVOLUTIONIST 63 

upon. The people were compelled to do one of two 
things, and they soon realized the fact — either desist 
from their struggle for liberty, or else intimidate the 
aristocracy. 

The charter which, at the request of some of the 
patriotic party, he drew up, can be found in his works, 
either edition. It was an immense step forward for the 
French people. 

Gouverneur Morris and Jefferson never did each other 
justice. They were men so far apart in temperament 
and in political creed that it was well nigh impossible. 
Morris was cynical, sneering, distrustful of every sort 
of elevating sentiment — the hard, practical man of 
affairs; — fond of speculation, withal — yet acute; — 
honest, but utterly incapable of believing that anybody 
professing a faith in the rule of the masses of the people 
could be otherwise than hypocritical. Jefferson was 
as we know him to be. 

Jefferson saw clearly the real causes of the French 
Revolution — saw too that its excesses were not to be 
charged solely to the passions and cruel vengeance and 
ignorance of the people, but in just proportion also to 
the long oppression which had preceded and produced 
their ignorance, and to the almost fiendish contempt 
for the people, which had had its result in arousing 
avenging passions against the noblesse who enter- 
tained it. Carlyle afterwards, partially, and Charles 
Dickens, very clearly, saw what Jefferson did, but 
neither quite as sympathetically. How clearly he saw 
it all would be, if I had space or time, worth demon- 
strating at the risk of tediousness. 



64 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

When, on the 4th of August, the National Assembly 
aboUshed all class privileges, Jefferson says: ''Thus 
there went down at one sweeping blow all titles of 
rank, all the abusive privileges of feudalism, the tithes 
and casuals of the clergy, all provincial privileges." 
Then the Declaration of Rights was adopted, and then 
a committee appointed to draft a constitution, and then 
that most extraordinary compliment paid to Mr. 
Jefferson, when the chairman of this committee wrote 
him a letter, dated July 20th, requesting him to "assist" 
at then- deliberations. Of course, Jefferson knew 
better the duties of an ambassador than to take any 
such open and public part in the formation of the 
constitution of a country, to the court of which he was 
accredited. It shows, nevertheless, the remarkable 
influence of the man, which was demonstrated through- 
out his life, wherever he happened to be. 

Here Jefferson ceased to be a spectator of the great 
European drama. It will be noted that it was before 
the great excesses which shocked the civilized world 
had occurred. 

Parton says, in his "Jefferson's Return From France" 
— Atlantic Monthly, 1872 — and I am glad to find 
somebody who agrees with me about that : — 

"The narrative of events written by Jefferson in extreme old 
age, brief, cold and colorless as it is, taken in connection with his 
numerous letters, official and private, written at the time, will be 
prized by the individual, who will, at length, evolve the French 
Revolution from the chaos of material in which it is now involved. 
Unfortunately, Jefferson went too far in extirpating his egotism. 
He was not vain enough; he was curiously reticent concerning his 
own part in important events; he instinctively veiled them and his 



THE REVOLUTIONIST 65 

personality. But for this, he might have found time in his busy 
retirement, to compose a history of the Revolution down to the 
taking of the Bastille, which would have been of imperishable interest. 
It was not merely that he knew the men and witnessed the events, 
but he preserved his increduhty, accepted nothing upon mere rumor, 
and personally investigated occurrences. If a rumor reached him 
that 'three thousand people had fallen in the streets,' he and his 
secretary, Mr. Short, would go to the spot, and, after minute inquiry, 
reduce the number to 'three.' He was unwearied in sifting out the 
interminable sessions of the various assembhes, and thought little 
of riding to Versailles ' to satisfy myself of what has passed there, 
for nothing can be beUeved ("here") but what one sees or has 
from an eye witness.'" 

Jefferson had been in constant association with the 
chief spirits, who constituted the moderate monarchical, 
and the moderate repubHcan, membership of the 
French legislative body. He supplied them with books 
and literature, wrote for them a discourse on the jury 
system, recommending it because it gave an 'infusion 
of the people in the transaction of affairs," which was 
''necessary to the preservation of purity." 

In connection with Jefferson's views of the French 
Revolution, it must be remembered that he had studied 
and understood the condition of the French people as well 
as the follies of their government; that he had "felt of 
their beds to see how they slept;" that he had ''looked 
into their pots" to see if there were soup or fowl in 
them; that he was in a better position, than any other 
American of his day, to make due allowance for the 
excesses which after his departure ran riot amongst a 
sorely provoked people — a people, who, in addition 
to the drawback of inexperience in self-government, had 
had the hot iron of contempt and oppression thrust 
6 



66 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

into them and turned around in the wound, until their 
hearts were aflame with a spirit of revenge, as well as 
with a desire for their share of the earth's freedom and 
happiness. Most Americans put the French in their 
own positions and judged them accordingly. Jefferson 
tried to put himself in their place, and did it very well — 
considering that he was philosophe and they were 
enragees. 



CHAPTER III 

JEFFERSON THE DEMOCRATIZER OF STATE 
INSTITUTIONS 

1. A STATE MADE OVER 

I DOUBT if there is anything sweeter in Mr. Jefferson's 
Ufe than what he says in his Autobiography in the 
following modest way : — 

"I have sometimes asked myself whether my country is better 
for my having lived at all. I do not know that it is; I have been 
the instrument of doing the following things; but they would have 
been done by others, some of them, perhaps, a Uttle better." 

Then there follows a reference to four great measures 
— three of which were afterwards inscribed on his 
tomb, the other being the abolition of primogeniture 
and entail. 

Note that the things he took most pride in were all, 
save one — the authorship of the Declaration — state, 
not federal, acts. Note the same fact in the inscription 
chosen by him for his tomb: ''Author of the Declara- 
tion of Independence and of the Virginia Statute for 
Freedom of ReHgion and Father of the University of 
Virginia." 

It has been a sort of fashion to speak of Thomas 
Jefferson as a "theorist," "doctrinaire," and all that. 
Very few people know how great he was as a con- 
structive statesman — a legislator. In the first place, 
Mr. Jefferson was an excellent lawyer — not a great 

67 



68 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

advocate, because he was never an orator, nor even a 
very great debater. His vocal defects, as noted else- 
where, prevented this. 

He was only thirty-three, when he resigned from 
Congress and went back to Virginia, there to begin his 
wonderful work of poHtical and social and industrial 
reconstruction. His reason for it is best given in his 
own language: — 

"When I left Congress in 1776, it was in the persuasion that our 
whole code must be revised, adapted to our republican form of 
government, and, now that we had no negations of councils, gover- 
nors and kings to restrain us from doing right, that it should be 
corrected in all its parts, with a single eye to reason, and the good 
of those for whose government it was formed." 

Every law that he introduced was in itself a refor- 
mation, far reaching in its ends, conservative in its 
methods. Let us run over, rapidly, the acts of con- 
structive legislation, of which he was the author, leaving 
details as to their bearing, effect, origin, or date of 
passage to later comment : An act defining treason, and 
abohshing corruption of blood as a part of its punish- 
ment, thus refraining from visiting upon the heads of 
the innocent the guilt of the offender; one defining 
citizenship, being the first legislative assertion in the 
world of the right of expatriation, the first denial of the 
doctrine of indefeasible allegiance, under which kings 
claimed men's bodies and services for life and defied 
the natural right of the individual to adopt a new 
country. This has since become an American principle. 
His acts abolishing estates tail; abolishing primo- 
geniture; establishing freedom of rehgion; his bill, 
which failed to be fully enacted, establishing a thorough 



DEMOCRATIZER OF STATE INSTITUTIONS 69 

system of education; the magnificent preamble to the 
first constitution of the State of Virginia; the bill of 
1784 for the government of the Northwest Territory, 
the precedent for our territorial system of government; 
his bills, which became law, for the simpHfication of the 
court system of Virginia; his act prohibiting the 
importation of slaves into Virginia; his amendment for 
the emancipation and deportation of slaves, which 
failed, it is true, but barely failed; the laws for the 
establishment of a State University, all of which he 
drafted; his bills reforming the criminal laws of the 
State of Virginia, and abolishing the barbarous practice 
of drawing and quartering; his protest against the 
revolting feature of the lex talionis; the removal, under 
his recodification, from the Virginia criminal laws 
of the death penalty in twenty-seven cases — in all 
cases except treason and murder — a third of a century 
or more before the great English law reformers, amongst 
whom Romilly stood first, succeeded in reaching a like 
result in Great Britain. All of these things were not 
the promises of a theorist, but the accomplishments of 
a practical constructive statesman. The multifari- 
ousness of his work is equalled in credit to him by the 
lucidity of the language in which it was dressed. How 
many of them were the first examples of their kind? 
The act defining citizenship, I have mentioned; his 
amelioration of brutal penalties, the first example of 
that sort of legislative humaneness perhaps anywhere, 
certainly in the English-speaking world; his act of '78 
was the first American law to abolish the foreign slave 
trade, and became a legislative fact, as R. G. H. Kean, 
in "Thomas Jefferson as a Legislator," says, "when 



70 PERIMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

Thomas Clarkson was a school boy." His statute of 
religious liberty I shall dwell upon in a subsequent 
lecture. It was the first example in a Christian country 
of absolute freedom of public worship, not only for all 
Christians, but for all religionists of every sort — 
guaranteeing freedom of belief and freedom of worship 
— cutting off all possible forms of legal persecution, and 
all control by the State of either religious conviction or 
religious observance. He worked a reformation in his 
tools, too, the law language, with its '' saids " and " afore- 
saids" and its endless tautologies and repetitions. He 
himself gives a very fair resume of the most important 
of the legislative reforms he introduced in Virginia, 
and with accustomed self-abnegation and lack of desire 
to glorify self, never once mentioning that he — the 
youngest of them — was chairman of the committee 
composed of himself, Edmund Pendleton, George 
Wythe, George Mason and Thomas Lightfoot Lee, and 
that upon him as chairman fell the main burden of the 
work. The fact is that he and George Wythe sub- 
stantially did it all. Mr. Pendleton's part was recast 
and reformed by the two, owing partially to the fact 
that Mr. Pendleton misunderstood the program, and 
still more, perhaps, to the fact that he was called away 
by sickness. 

Randall calls attention to the fact that many, actu- 
ated by the undying class hatred of Jefferson and the 
chronic desire to cheapen him in the public estimate, 
afterwards were heard to say, that ''that part of the 
revision performed by Pendleton could be distinguished 
by its superior precision." The humor of this lies in 
the fact that Pendleton did not perform any part of 
the revision. 



DEMOCRATIZER OF STATE INSTITUTIONS 71 

In the distribution made of the work, all of the com- 
mon law and the British statutes down to the fourth 
year of James I (1607) — the year of the settlement 
of Jamestown — including all the subjects I have 
mentioned, were committed to Mr. Jefferson alone. 
The brevity and conciseness and succinctness, as well 
as the clearness of expression of this codification, is 
remarkable. The whole thing occupied only ninety 
folio pages. Much of what was contained in the report 
of recodification was not enacted until later, but that 
was the size of it, if it had all been enacted at once. 
Some parts of it, notably the abolition of slavery and 
some features of the slave code, were never enacted at 
all, and of his superb educational code, establishing a 
complete system from the A B Cs to the crowning 
result in a State University, only the elementary school 
part of the last chapter was then actually transferred to 
the statute books, and it so amended as to mar its 
working for years. The criminal code, as reported by 
Mr. Jefferson, entitled, "A bill for proportioning crimes 
and punishments in cases heretofore capital," etc., 
occupied only six pages octavo, or, with all the copious 
notes and references and the embodiment of the Anglo- 
Saxon laws, written in that language and accompanied 
by his own translation, took up only thirteen pages. 

The following language in the preamble of Mr. 
Jefferson's bill ''for proportioning crimes and punish- 
ments heretofore capital" is characteristic of the man 
and of his legal style : — 

"And forasmuch as the experience of all ages and countries 
hath shown, that cruel and sanguinary laws defeat their own pur- 
pose, by engaging the benevolence of mankind to withhold prose- 



72 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

cutions, to smother testimony, or to listen to it with bias, when, if 
the punishment were only proportioned to the injury, men would 
feel it their inclination, as well as their duty, to see the laws ob- 
served. For rendering crimes and punishments, therefore, more 
proportionate to each other. Be it enacted by the General Assembly, 
that no crimes shall be henceforth punished by deprivation of life 
or Umb, except those hereinafter ordained to be so punished." 

Jefferson places the defence of capital punishment 
upon the only sensible ground that it can rest on, if 
on any, to wit: that certain criminals are capitally 
punished for the reason that their existence has become 
inconsistent with the safety of society. There is no 
defence for capital punishment on the ground that it 
reforms. There is httle on the ground that it deters 
others. It is very doubtful if it does. But there is 
such a thing as a criminal, whose very existence and 
the propagation of whose kind are inconsistent with 
the welfare of society. In the Code of Virginia, as he 
revised it, there w^as to be no conviction for treason, 
except upon an overt act. 
All this might well be called "The Jefferson Code. " 
I know of no higher tribute to him as a successful 
legislator than the following, which I shall quote from 
Mr. Kean's book, "Thomas Jefferson as a Legislator." 
He says: — 

"Some of the changes were so radical, so novel in the experience 
of mankind, so far reaching in their effects upon society, so difficult 
to embody in statutes at once concise, simple and clear, that only 
those who have had experience either in drafting important laws, 
or in watching the effects in their administration of important stat- 
utory changes, can realize the difficulty of the undertaking and 
the marvellous skill and foresight with which Mr. Jefferson wrought 
as a legislator. As an illustration of this, it is worth while, even 



DEMOCRATIZER OF STATE INSTITUTIONS 73 

to readers who have no acquaintance with technical law, to consider 
the Virginia 'statute of descents.' This bill became a law in 
October, 1785. . . . These rules are (briefly stated) the common 
law ' canons of descent,' by which EngUsh inheritances were governed, 
and largely are still. 

"Now, by Mr. Jefferson's act in Virginia, every one of them at 
one stroke was swept away. The estate was required to pass in 
parcenary (that is, in equal shares where a class of heirs come in), 
first, to the children and their descendants. This rooted up both 
the preference of males over females and of the oldest male over 
the other children of both sexes. If there be no child nor the 
descendant of any, to the father, and if no father, to the mother, 
brothers and sisters and their descendants. If these all be wanting, 
the estate is divided into two moieties, one going to the paternal 
and the other to the maternal kindred," etc. 

"Thus every shred of pre-existing (English) law of descents was 
demoUshed, and a scheme based on new principles, contradictory 
to it, was substituted in its place. The act as adopted (and it 
was adopted precisely as Mr. Jefferson drew it), consists of eighteen 
clauses and occupies a httle over a single page in the Statute Book." 

" Now it has not been without definite purpose that so much of 
the substance of the act has been stated, even at the peril of dis- 
gusting the lay-reader. It was needful to illustrate what now 
follows. Under the provisions of this new act, which subverted and 
reversed all the rules which had previously existed in the State, 
all the real estate which has descended in Virginia to the heirs of 
the generations of a hundred years, has passed to those entitled by 
these provisions. So precise, so comprehensive and exhaustive, 
so simple and clear, were the terms in which they were expressed, 
that in the experience of a completed century but one single doubt as 
to the construction and effect of any part of it has arisen. That single 
doubt was resolved by the case of Davis vs, Rowe, 6 Randolph, 355." 

Mr. Kean says that as one consequence of the wonder- 
ful fairness and clearness of Mr. Jefferson's ''statute of 
descents": "It is much less the rule for persons (in 



74 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

Virginia) to make wills, than (as I believe) is the case 
generally elsewhere." *' It is a common remark of men, 
in whose families no special cause for special provision 
in case of death exists, that " ''the law makes as good a 
will as they care to have." 

Most of these reforms in the direction of adapting 
laws to republican and democratic institutions were 
followed, more or less awkwardly, by the other states, 
though some of the abuses that were abolished in 
Virginia lingered for years in some of the other states. 

Jefferson's purpose in abolishing entail and primo- 
geniture is beautifully expressed by him: — 

"To annul this privilege, and, instead of an aristocracy of wealth, 
of more harm and danger than benefit to society, to make an opening 
for the aristocracy of virtue and talent, which nature has wisely 
provided for the direction of the interests of society, and scattered 
with equal hand through all its conditions, was deemed essential 
to a well ordered republic." 

Jefferson sought to democratize not only political 
and social, but industrial conditions. He wanted free 
labor, as much as free worship, or free land, or equal 
justice or equaUty in the family and among citizens. 
Thus it came about that slavery was not compatible 
with his doctrine. Throughout his entire life he was 
consistently and persistently opposed to it. It crops 
out in his " Smnmary View of the Rights of British 
America," pubHshed in 1775, in his " Notes on Virginia," 
again in the arraignment of the King for encouraging 
the slave trade in the Declaration of Independence, as 
originally drawn by him, and still again in the Decla- 
ration, in that assertion — which escaped contempo- 
raneous opposition, because it was regarded by super- 



DEMOCRATIZER OF STATE INSTITUTIONS 75 

ficial and cynical critics as "a glittering generality" — 
of the "self evident truth" that '^all men are created 
equal," and '^endowed by their Creator with . . . 
liberty." With what force Abraham Lincoln used the 
Declaration of Independence in his fight against the 
spread of slavery is well known, and this too after the 
Continental Congress had struck out of the Declaration 
every word which was regarded by its members as 
bearing directly on the subject. 

Lincoln said: "All honor to Jefferson — to the man 
who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national 
independence by a single people, had the coolness, 
forecast and capacity to introduce into a mere revo- 
lutionary document an abstract truth, applicable to all 
men in all times, and so to embalm it there that today 
and in all days to come it shall be a rebuke and a 
stumbling block to the very harbinger of reappearing 
tyranny and oppression." 

It has been sometimes urged that Jefferson was not 
altogether consistent because he did not emancipate 
his own slaves. Jefferson was in debt — the debt had 
come to him with his wife's estate — and neither in his 
lifetime, nor afterwards, could he have freed his or her 
slaves from the claims of his creditors. He did set 
free, by will, liis household servants — three or four or 
five of them, I have forgotten — and in order to do this, 
he had to beg in his testament of the Legislature of 
Virginia the ratification of the act. 

Jefferson in one of his letters said: "The laws do not 
permit us to turn them loose, . . . and to commute 
them for other property [that is, plainly to sell them] 
is to commit them to those whose usage of them we 
cannot control." 



76 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

What Jefferson meant by saying ''the laws do not 
permit us to turn them loose," in view of Randolph's 
emancipation of his slaves by will, of young Edward 
Cole's carrying his off to Illinois and setting them free 
there, and Professor Wythe and many others setting 
theirs free, is obviously that the law did not permit an 
indebted man to deprive his creditors of an assured 
security for the payment of their debts. 

Jefferson was the author of the bill which passed the 
Virginia Assembly permitting slave owners — when 
out of debt — to emancipate their slaves. He was also 
the author of the Virginia bill forbidding further 
importation of slaves into that State. One of his very 
last acts while President was a message sent to Congress 
recommending the enactment of a law prohibiting their 
importation into any port of the United States, so that 
the law could take effect upon the first moment that 
was possible under the Constitution, the Constitution 
itself having forbidden Congress to make any law upon 
the subject prior to the year 1808, and not having re- 
quired it to stop importation of slaves even then. He 
had tried in the Continental Congress in 1784 to exclude 
slavery not merely from the Northwest Territory as was 
later done, but from all the territories of the United 
States, "ceded or to be ceded," had lost his motion by 
the vote of a single State, and when the matter is fully 
analyzed, really by the vote of a single delegate of a 
single State, who, if he had been present instead of 
absent, would have carried the decision the other way. 

I have never seen it myself, but his bill, or ordinance, 
by which slavery was to be prohibited in all the terri- 
tories is said to be in the archives of the National Capitol 



DEMOCRATIZER OF STATE INSTITUTIONS 77 

in Jefferson's handwriting. The language used by him 
on this subject in 1784, was repeated in the ordinance 
of 1787 for the government of the Northwest Territory, 
and part of it is carried down in the Thirteenth Amend- 
ment to the Constitution of the United States. 

I haven't space to give it here, but I would ask the 
reader to peruse Jefferson's letter to Edward Coles, 
dated August 25, 1814. It expresses more nearly than 
any other one document his views on slavery, and 
exhibits that singular melange of radicahsm as to aim, 
and conservatism as to means, which characterized the 
man. One part of it, I must quote: "My opinion has 
ever been that until more can be done for them, we 
should endeavor with those whom fortune has thrown 
in our hands, to feed and clothe them well, to protect 
them from ill-usage, require such reasonable labor only 
as is performed voluntarily by freemen, and be led by 
no repugnances to abdicate them, and our duties to 
them." Then follows the language which I have 
already quoted: ''The laws do not permit us to turn 
them loose, etc." It was harder to be a good master 
then, than it was to emancipate a lot of ignorant, 
and for the most part foolish creatures — welcome 
nowhere — unable to take care of themselves and with 
nobody under obligations to take care of them. With 
an emancipation universal — as it was when it finally 
came — these difficulties were for the most part obviated, 
but to turn a whole race free, under conditions such that 
their labor must be sought and paid for, is a different 
thing from turning a few free to be unwelcome every- 
where as men and impossible as laborers — to be ob- 
jects of suspicion as "free niggers" and possibly victims 



78 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

of kidnapping by rough men and of sale into slavery a 
half of a thousand miles or more away. 

Most of the free states forbade their residence; they 
did not fit into the system in the slave states. 

As Jefferson said later: "We have the wolf by the 
ears. It is equally difficult to hold him and to turn him 
loose." 

I think one of the best pictures of the difficulties of 
those whose "consciences bore witness against slavery," 
but who still owned slaves, and who attempted to relieve 
themselves of the problem by setting them free, is to 
be found in Helen Gardener's delightful book, "An 
Unofficial Patriot." By the way, it contains the best 
portrayal of Lincoln in our hterature. 

Jefferson did the best he could, as a practical man. 
He was one of the kindest masters that ever lived, too 
lenient for the good of his slaves — so lenient as to 
put and leave his private business in a deplorable 
condition — for, after all is said and done, his unwilling- 
ness to make his slaves do good work accounts more 
than any other one thing for the fact that his child 
was left without a shelter for her head, and that the 
negroes themselves finally had to be sold, some of them 
perhaps to bad masters. 

Jefferson's ever-initiatory mind, when he had what 
he thought a beneficent public object in view, is illus- 
trated in a long letter to Jared Sparks, dated February 
4, 1824, in which he suggests the consecration of the 
proceeds of the pubhc lands to the emancipation and 
deportation of the slaves. In after years, however, 
after the cotton gin came into general use, any voluntary 
aboUtion of slavery became impossible; that is impos- 



DEMOCRATIZER OF STATE INSTITUTIONS 79 

sible, unless human nature itself could be changed — 
and this very thing of changing human nature is the 
only thing impossible for the statesman. It must come 
of itself, after long reaches of time. 

It is to be said for the slaveholders of the South, and 
for the non-slaveholding classes of the South, who were 
just as intense in their devotion to the Southern cause, 
that, although there was slavery among them, it was, 
as a system, the least onerous, the least cruel, and the 
kindliest slavery the earth ever witnessed. 

My early boyhood was spent on a plantation of 150 
slaves. I was eleven years of age when the war closed. 
I remember only three plantation punishments : One a 
man whipped for stealing, one a woman whipped for 
general and dangerous prostitution, and the other was 
that of a man, who was kept on bread and water for 
two weeks, because he had in a mutual fray killed his 
brother. The last finally met with the penalty — 
unprecedented on that place — which he dreaded most, 
and tearfully attempted to escape — sale. 

I leave this plain narrative without comment. Nor 
do I pretend that there were no exceptions to the 
almost universal kindly usage — almost patriarchal 
in its character — on which I have slightly raised the 
curtain. But, in the Chancel of God, where all acts 
and all motives are known, the slaveholders of the South 
will not stand least prepared amongst men to receive 
Divine justice, or Divine mercy. Much of their 
heroism upon the battle-field, indeed, grew out of the 
fact that they had been held up to the world's hatred, 
as cruel and selfish and autocratic, when they knew 
that they were none of these. They were fighting 



80 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

personal insult as much as anything else. Certainly no 
class enjoying by law special caste privilege, or any class 
subjected by their situation to such grave temptations, 
ever behaved so well. 

The first sentence of Jefferson's bill "Concerning 
Slaves" — that is, the bill abolishing the importation 
of slaves into Virginia, was in these words : — 

"That no persons shall henceforth be slaves within this Common- 
wealth, except such as were so on the first day of this present session 
of Assembly, and the descendants of the females of them. Slaves 
which shall hereafter be brought into this Commonwealth, and kept 
therein one year, or so long at different times as shall amount to 
one year, shall be free." 

If each State had imitated this statute, slavery must 
have died out in the border States, and the race problem, 
even in the cotton States, owing to the consequent com- 
parative paucity in numbers of Africans, would never 
have been the stupendous thing it now is. 

Professor Andrew D. White, ''Jefferson and Slavery," 
in the Atlantic Monthly of January, 1862, says: — 

"Logic forced him to pass from the attack on aristocracy to the 
attack on slavery, just as logic forces the Confederate oligarchs of 
today to pass from the defence of slavery to the defence of aris- 
tocracy." 

Remember, this was written in 1862, and therefore 
considering the heated feelings of war times, the son of 
a Confederate soldier can forgive Professor White for 
referring to his forefathers as "oHgarchs"; which they 
by no means were. But it is none the less true that the 
defence of slavery did logically compel to a certain 
extent the defence of caste, for it was itself a form of 



DEMOCRATIZER OF STATE INSTITUTIONS 81 

caste and class privilege. But as Thomas Carlyle 
said: ''I thank God men are not logical." 

Professor White quotes these utterances from Jeffer- 
son, which I shall re-quote. Remember, Jefferson is 
addressing his brother slaveholders of Virginia: — 

"When arguing for ourselves, we lay it down as fundamental, 
that laws, to be just, must give reciprocation of right — that 
without this, they are mere arbitrary rules of conduct, founded in 
force, and not in conscience; and it is a problem which I give to the 
master to solve, whether the religious precepts against the violation 
of property were not framed for him as well as his slave — and 
whether the slave may not as justifiably take a little from one who 
has taken all from him as a man may slay one who would slay him." 

"Can the hberties of a nation be thought secure, when we 
have removed their only firm basis — a conviction in the minds 
of the people that their liberties are the gifts of God, that they are 
not to be violated but with His wrath? . . . The Almighty has no 
attribute, which can take side with us in such a contest." 

"What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is 
man — who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment, and 
death itself, in vindication of his own liberty, and, in the next mo- 
ment, be deaf to all those motives whose power supported him 
through his trial, and inflict on his fellow men a bondage one hour 
of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose 
in rebellion to oppose? " 

"The hour of emancipation is advancing in the march of time. 
It will come; and whether brought on by the generous energy of our 
own minds or by the bloody process of St. Domingo, ... is a leaf 
of our history not yet turned over." 

If the war had not come, and the slaves been freed as a 
"war measure," and if — there being no power under 
the Constitution for Congress to interfere with slavery 
7 



82 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

in the States — slavery had continued for another half 
century or so, the negro population growing in com- 
parison with the whites, as it did under slavery con- 
ditions — so favorable to their birth rate and un- 
favorable to their death rate — would not the scenes 
of San Domingo have been some day necessarily re- 
enacted in the Southern cotton States? 

Jefferson's enduring influence in every word he 
uttered is shown by the fact that during the War 
Between the States, Andrew D. White, in this very 
article, quoted in favor of the abohtion of slavery, 
as a "war measure,'' what Jefferson said, when Corn- 
wallis had carried his negroes off to die of smallpox and 
then deserted them stricken and dying: "Had this 
been to give them their freedom, he would have done 
right." This is quoted against Jefferson's own kith 
and kin, against the South that he loved so dearly, 
against Virginia that he almost worshipped. But it 
must be confessed that what Jefferson said was a logos, 
just as is the phrase of the Declaration of Independence, 
"All men are created equal and endowed," etc. In the 
latter case, I have no doubt that Jefferson intended it 
to be as a leaven, and that he saw, long down the aisle 
of time, the day when that leaven must work. 

Jefferson's own words in connection with his desire 
to procure the emancipation and deportation of slaves, 
better express his view than any explanation of them : — 

"It is still in our power to direct the progress of emancipation 
and deportation, peaceably, and in such slow degree, as that the 
evil ^vill wear off insensibly, and their place be, pari passu, filled up 
by free white laborers. If, on the contrary, it is left to force itself 
on, human nature must shudder at the prospect held up." 



DEMOCRATIZER OF STATE INSTITUTIONS 83 

Later, Mr. Jefferson in his '^Memoir" uses this 
language in connection with the same subject: — 

"But it was found that the public mind would not yet bear the 
proposition, nor will it bear it even at this day. Yet the day is 
not distant when it must bear and adopt it, or worse will follow. 
Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these 
people are to be free. Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally 
free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion, 
have drawn indelible lines of distinction between them." 

If our Southern ancestry could have "borne" the 
proposition early enough, what a deluge of blood, what 
a wealth of women's tears, what devastations of the land, 
and what waste in treasures had been spared us! And 
if your Northern forefathers had only remembered the 
balance of what Jefferson wrote and knew so well, or 
if they could, in the nature of things, have known it; 
namely, that the two races cannot live equals politically 
and socially, in the same government, because "nature, 
habit and opinion have drawn indelible lines of dis- 
tinction between them," how much of the criminalities, 
follies, mad saturnalia and corruption of reconstruction, 
how much of the great "Fool's Errand," as it is so well 
designated by one who calls himself "one of the fools," 
would have been spared us as a nation! 

I know of nothing showing the prescient wisdom of 
one man, more than these few lines just quoted from 
Mr. Jefferson show his. In this, as in many other 
instances, it has seemed to me that the man had an 
intuitive, and not merely a reasoned, insight into the 
future. What would we not have been by now had we 
never been cursed with slavery, with the irrepressible, 
bloody and wasteful conflict growing out of it, and with 



84 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

the almost unavoidable pendente hello and post helium 
federal and industrial consolidation, all leading to the 
casting off of the ship for so long a time from the old 
Jeffersonian moorings! It must be confessed that the 
running together of partisan interest and of slave 
interest made the party which Jefferson founded to 
cease for a time to be Jeffersonian — made it a de- 
fender of aristocracy, as well as of slavery in the South. 
It seems restored to its old course again. God grant 
that the verisimilitude prove a verity! 

The plan of emancipation and deportation, which 
Jefferson drew up — intended to be offered as an 
amendment to the slave code — as reported by the 
law revisers, contemplated not only the freedom of all 
slaves born after a certain date, but their apprentice- 
ship to some trade, until reaching a certain age, and 
then their deportation to some territory to be bought 
for them, and an advancement of tools of husbandry 
and of provisions sufficient for them to support them- 
selves, until a crop had been made on land given them. 

Lincoln, like Jefferson, recognized inherent differ- 
ences between the two races, and regarded the blacks 
as essentially inferior. In other words, neither was 
ever free of that which most people call "race preju- 
dice," but which I think ought to be called "race 
knowledge." 

It will be remembered that when Jefferson resigned 
from the Continental Congress to go to Virginia in 
order to make sure of democratic reforms, one reason 
he gave for undertaking it at that time was this: "The 
shackles which shall not be knocked off at the con- 
clusion of this war will remain on us long, will be made 



DEMOCRA.TIZER OF STATE INSTITUTIONS 85 

heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire 
in a convulsion." Thus early he foresaw the great 
American Counter Revolution. 

He was so convinced that this great work of "adapt- 
ing the laws to republican institutions," was needful, if 
the fruit of our war for independence was to be any- 
thing more than a mere change of buntings, that the 
trappings of office on the one side could not tempt, nor 
the hatred of the beneficiaries of special privilege, on the 
other hand, deter him. 

Speaking of the purpose of his revision work, he says 
in his ''Memoir": — 

" I considered four of these bills passed or reported, as forming a 
system by which every fibre would be eradicated of ancient or future 
aristocracy, and a foundation laid for a government truly republican. 
(1) The repeal of the laws of entail would prevent the accumulation 
and perpetuation of wealth in select famihes, and preserve the soil 
of the country from being daily more and more absorbed in mort- 
main. (2) The abolition of primogeniture, and the equal partition 
of inheritances, removed the feudal and unnatural distinctions 
which made one member of every family rich and all the rest poor. 
(3) The restoration of the rights of conscience, relieved the people 
from taxation for the support of a religion not theirs ; for the estab- 
lishment was truly the rehgion of the rich, the dissenting sects being 
entirely composed of the less wealthy people; and (4) These, by 
the bill for general education, would be quahfied to understand 
their rights, to maintain them, and to exercise with intelhgence 
their parts in self-government. And all this would be effected 
without the violation of a single natural right of any one individual 
citizen." 

The last sentence is especially characteristic of the 
*' Conservative Reformer." A reformer, yes, that is the 
substantive — the main thing — but conservative in 
method — almost noiseless in approach. Later Jeffer- 



86 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

son had reason to believe that reformation would have 
to go yet deeper at some future time in order to prevent 
that undue accumulation of wealth in the hands of a 
few people — so destructive of the spirit of free insti- 
tutions — and in one of his letters — I do not recall to 
whom — he said that when that day should come, the 
abolition of primogeniture and entail would have to be 
followed by "a limitation of the statutory privilege" 
of bequest, devise and inheritance, as to the amounts 
which could be left by any one person, to any one per- 
son, or purpose. He was prescient and far-seeing in 
this, too, and to it we must come. It will also be only 
the limitation of ''a statutory privilege," not ''the 
violation of a single natural right" of a single citizen. 

Jefferson well says, that it is intolerable that the 
skeleton fingers of the dead shall forever reach from 
their graves to control the destinies of the living to their 
detriment. And yet further, in a letter he wrote from 
France, being, as he designated it, a ''train of reflec- 
tions" on "the unequal division of property," caused 
by finding people "without land to work or work to 
do" in a part of France, where "enormous holdings," 
in the hands of great lords, "some of them" waited on 
by "200 domestics," were "devoted to game" — thus 
placing the proprietors there above the necessity or 
incentive of improving, or even of cultivating the land 
— he says — after recognizing that equal division is 
impracticable and undesirable: "but legislators cannot 
invent too many devices for subdividing property, only 
taking care to let those subdivisions go hand in hand 
with the natural affections of the human mind." Then 
he recommends as a first step for France what she sub- 



DEMOCRATIZER OF STATE INSTITUTIONS 87 

sequently adopted, and what he had already partially 
accomplished in Virginia: Descent to all the children — 
if none, to all the brothers and sisters — or in default 
of those to "other relatives in an equal degree." "An- 
other means of a fairer distribution," he suggests, "is 
to exempt all real property below a certain value from 
taxation and graduate the tax on the rest in proportion 
to the magnitude of the holding in geometrical pro- 
gression." He adds: "The earth is given as common 
stock for man to live and labor on. It is too soon yet 
in our country to say that every man, who cannot find 
employment, but who can find uncultivated land, shall 
be at liberty to cultivate it, paying a moderate rent," 
but "not too soon" to make it a point, that "as few 
families as possible shall be without a little portion of 
land" — "Small landholders are the most precious 
part of the State." 

Leicester Ford finds in all this a demonstration of 
"French influence," and, I presume, much "horrid 
radicalism"! I confess I see nothing French in it, 
except a protest against French conditions and the 
fact that it happened to be written in France, after a 
Laurence-Sterne-sort of a meeting with a poor old 
French woman. I confess, too, that, if the recom- 
mendations reached at the end of this "train of reflec- 
tions" be radical, they seem to me none the less wise. 

But to return to our sheep: He took his seat in the 
Virginia House of Delegates on October 7th. Five 
days after that, in such a hurry was he to strike while 
the iron was hot, he took his first steps towards effecting 
the gigantic reforms to which I have referred. To 
use his own language, he thought it well, first to try 



88 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

*Hhe strength of the general pulse of reformation," by 
attacking the saHent ''vicious points," ''prominent in 
character and principle." 

On October 12th, he moved and received leave to 
bring in a bill entitled, a bill "To enable tenants in 
taille to convey their lands in fee simple," and on the 
same day received leave to bring in a bill "For a 
revision of the laws." He was doing his work quickly, 
because on the 14th he reported back the first bill. 
The enormity of this revolution and its influence upon 
the economic condition and the social life of Virginia, 
can scarcely be exaggerated. All over the State, but 
preeminently on "The Eastern Shore" and in the lower 
counties, the land had been gathered into great estates, 
held by the law of entail from generation to generation 
in the same family. Moreover, by the law of primo- 
geniture, they descended to the oldest son of the 
family. These two laws together had produced the 
same result, which may be now viewed in Great 
Britain, only the result in Virginia was still more pro- 
nounced, if anything, because the law of entail there 
carried slaves as well as land. As a consequence, the 
social structure was essentially aristocratic, producing, 
on the one hand, a class of great landlords, Hving in 
luxury, sometimes in idleness, though, be it said to 
their credit, for the most part, usefully, and in the 
spirit of noblesse oblige. But The Few controlled in 
pohtics, in society, and in every other way. No 
worthier aristocracy, upon the whole, than that of 
Colonial Virginia, ever existed, none ever devoted 
itself more unselfishly to the public service, none ever 
cared less about pelf; but it was none the less an aris- 



DEMOCRATIZER OF STATE INSTITUTIONS 89 

tocracy, and, as such, was antagonistic to every political 
theory of young Jefferson, middle-aged Jefferson, and 
old Jefferson. A class like this must, in the nature of 
things, exercise more influence than any equal number 
of equally able men not possessing their artificial 
advantages — of station, education, social life, wealth; 
and must in the nature of things exercise it as a class. 
The governmental structure necessarily rests upon the 
social and family structure. 

The Lees, the Randolphs, the Pendletons, the Nel- 
sons, the Pages, the Carters, the Careys; a hundred 
names will suggest themselves at once, illustrating the 
justice of any possible tribute to the old Virginia 
aristocracy, but the contemplation of them and their 
services is the bright side of the shield. 

Jefferson's doctrines, as Randall says, were "hard 
and unpalatable" to many of this class, whom Jeffer- 
son, in a pet, once called "the nurselings of luxury," 
and some of whom he designated as being "mono- 
maniacs on the subject of family importance." For 
years afterwards it was fashionable to dwell senti- 
mentally upon "the decadence of Virginia," and to 
attribute this to "the decadence of the great families," 
and this, in turn, to Thomas Jefferson's "levehng 
principles." Randolph of Roanoke, after he became 
sour, indulged in much of this sort of drivelling. 

It was not the abolition of special privileges, which 
held Virginia back; it was the failure to go far enough 
with the good work and abolish slavery and deport the 
slaves, just as it is the presence of an alien, unassimilable 
and improvident race, constituting industrially an 
inefficient labor, and socially a constant irritant, which 
is today the South's sole drawback. 



90 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

We can all now realize what an effect the equality 
of inheritance has upon the framework of society; how 
it tears down an artificial and superficial, though fair- 
appearing structure, and substitutes for it another more 
enduring, and in every way better adapted to secure 
the liberty and happiness and independence of man. 

In his own State, and in the South generally, the 
abolition of primogeniture and entail has thus far 
secured a fair distribution of wealth, but a worse thing 
than primogeniture is taking its place in some of the 
Northern States — especially in New York — where 
it has become a fad with some of the rich families to 
leave by will nearly all of their stupendous estates, not 
to the oldest son, who might possibly feel that he had 
enough money and ''go in for" something else, but to 
that one of the sons, who comes nearest resembling 
the founder of the family fortune in his greed for 
money, and in his capacity for making it — in short, 
to the best ''money-grubber" in the stock. 

The pecuHar thing is that Jefferson procured the 
passage of these "laws striking at the ascendency and 
domination of great, respectable and respected classes" 
by an appeal to the reason of a body in which those 
classes themselves were numerously represented, and of 
which classes Jefferson himself was a member, for he 
was a holder of extensive lands and an owner of very 
many slaves, and in his own family an eldest son. But 
he did not secure their passage without a fight — a fight 
not as acrimonious as it would have been, if anybody 
but Jefferson had been the advocate of the reforms, 
nor if the struggle had taken place elsewhere than in 
Virginia, where it was a tradition that pohtical oppo- 



DEMOCRATIZER OF STATE INSTITUTIONS 91 

nents, however divergent their views, must in pubhc 
be personally courteous to one another. Men of more 
than respectable talents, however — among them the 
Pendletons and Nicholases — met him in the breach. 
When frontal attack failed, they resorted to attacks on 
the flank. For example, when the law to abohsh entails 
was proposed, Mr. Pendleton, desiring to emasculate 
it, moved an amendment that the holders of such 
property might convey it in fee simple, "i/ they chose 
to do so,^^ and came within a few votes of securing the 
passage of the amendment! 

Proceeding with his work of reformation, on October 
14th, he procured leave to bring in a bill for the natural- 
ization of foreigners, and reported the bill upon this 
subject on the same day. This bill is remarkable, not 
only because it outlines an American pohcy towards 
those seeking our shores, which became afterwards 
permanent, except for a short interruption by the 
Federalists during alien and sedition law times and a 
brief menace during Know-Nothing days, but it is 
remarkable as being the first pubhc legislative denial 
of the doctrine of indefeasible allegiance. To this I 
have referred. Both these, it may be safely asserted, 
have become for us permanent and irrevocable national 
policies. 

Among other then notable and far-reaching things, 
he subjected land, just hke other property, to the pay- 
ment of debts. He made it a fluid asset. This was 
very important in connection with the work of demo- 
cratizing. You cannot completely free the man, unless 
you free the land. Man — the worker, land — the 
fulcrum — these two, in ultimate analysis, are all. 



92 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

Against the proposed abolition of primogeniture, 
Pendleton made a strong stand in committee in behalf 
of his class, and when he found a majority against 
him, resorted to a ruse, by proposing to adopt ''the 
Hebrew principle," that is, to give the oldest son a 
double portion. Jefferson, quaintly, but decisively, 
answered, that "if the eldest son could eat twice as 
much, or do double work, it might be a natural evi- 
dence of his right to inherit a double portion; but being 
on a par in his powers and wants, with his brothers and 
sisters, he should be on a par also in the partition of 
the patrimony." The committee agreed with him. 

These laws exerted for all time their democratizing 
influence over the people of Virginia, and, by their 
example which was imitated elsewhere, a beneficent 
influence over all America, but especially in the new 
States created out of the old Territory of Virginia, 
where he and his ideas were all his life intensely popular. 

John Esten Cooke, in his ''History of Virginia," 
says: — 

"After 1800, Virginia gradually assumed a new physiognomy. 
Dress and maimers underwent a change. The aristocratic planter, 
with his powder and silk stockings, gave place to the democratic 
citizen, with his plain clothes and plain manners. The theories of 
Jefferson were adopted as the rule of society. . . . Class distinctions 
were ignored as a remnant of social superstition." 

On the 13th of August, 1777, Jefferson wrote to 
Franklin as follows : — 

"With respect to the State of Virginia, ... the people seem 
to have laid aside the monarchical and taken up the republican 
government, with as much ease as would have attended their 
throwing off an old and putting on a new suit of clothes. Not a 



DEMOCRATIZER OF STATE INSTITUTIONS 93 

single throe has attended this important transformation. A 
half-dozen aristocratical gentlemen, agonizing under the loss of 
preeminence, have sometimes ventured their sarcasms on our 
political metamorphosis." 

In one graphic sentence, Thomas E. Watson, in his 
"Life and Times of Jefferson," gives the effect of Jeffer- 
son's work in democratizing Virginia institutions: **He 
unfettered the land, changed the tenure from fee tail 
to fee simple, made the soil democratic , and made 
the law to correspond. . . . Mind and tongue were 
unfettered. Religious liberty came to all." Truly 
"a State made over," and virtually by one man, whom 
shallow-pates have called a "doctrinaire!" That old 
quotation comes to my mind: "They said he was a 
dreamer, but his dreams came true." 

What is a doctrinaire? 

Burke, the prince of rhetoricians, says of Chatham, 
the elder Pitt: "For a wise man he seemed to me at 
that time to be too much governed by general maxims." 
But history records practically nothing left by Burke to 
mark his impress on institutions and history, while she 
records Chatham as an empire builder. 

Yet, let us not give Jefferson all the credit. Old 
Virginia had the heart and head to follow him in every 
respect, except concerning slavery; to embrace a democ- 
racy of equal rights, equal opportunities without legal 
or artificial privileges, and thus democratic has she 
remained — "so shedding hght" that all good States 
may imitate her example. 

Jefferson always contended that despite its admirable 
town-government system, the governing spirit of 
FederaUst New England was not genuinely democratic. 



94 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

This has ''amused" some of the late writers, who 
assume to wear the old Federahst mantle, under the 
impression that it sets them aside as something ''su- 
perior!" 

Mr. C. Edward Merriam, of the University of 
Chicago, has written a very interesting book entitled, 
"American Political Theories," pubhshed by the 
Macmillan Company in 1903, the perusal of which, 
under this head, I recommend to the reader. Among 
other things which he makes perfectly plain is the fact 
that the system of government advocated by the early 
Puritans was based upon neither equality nor democ- 
racy; it was a theocratic government, with pretty 
nearly all the power directedly or indirectly wielded 
by the clergy — so much so that only church members 
could become "freemen;" that is, a part of the govern- 
ing community. This was the case by law in Massa- 
chusetts and New Haven, and by actual practice in 
Plymouth and Connecticut. As he says, it was Roger 
Williams, not the Puritans, who stood for democracy, 
in New England. He taught limiting the activity of 
the state to what were called "breaches of the second 
table," a new phrase to me, when I struck it. The first 
four commandments were called the first table, because 
they related to the duty of man to God, and the last 
six were called the second table, because they related 
to the duties of man to man. In essential basic 
character, Roger Williams' view of the limits of the 
state in the affairs of men is not unlike that of Thomas 
Jefferson. 

Merriam cites that John Cotton in 1644 denounced 
democracy as "the meanest and worst of all forms of 



DEMOCRATIZER OF STATE INSTITUTIONS 95 

government," and that as late as 1764 in Massa- 
chusetts Bay the proposition to estabUsh aristocracy, 
as a form of government, was rejected, only because it 
involved "the abandonment of the requirement of church 
membership for the exercise of suffrage!" (Italics 
always mine.) 

Merriam adds that the "Puritans did not preach or 
practice religious toleration, nor did they become 
enthusiastic about the inherent rights of man." The 
equality which they believed in was spiritual equality; 
that is, equality among the saints — the elect. Of 
course, in this connection, the distinction between the 
Pilgrim Fathers and the Puritans must be kept in 
mind; they are generally confused. The practice and 
theory of the former were perfectly democratic and 
much more conducive to equality of citizens in the 
state. The political ideas of the Quakers were much 
more nearly those which were finally stamped as Ameri- 
can and national by the adoption of the Declaration of 
Independence, and much more nearly like those which 
were advocated by Roger Williams and Jefferson, than 
were those of the early settlers in New England. 
William Penn's definition of free government is not a 
bad one. It is this: ''Any goverimient is free to the 
people under it . . . where the laws rule and the people / 
are a party to those laws." Compare this with Jeffer- 
son's definition of a "Pure Republic," which see later, f '' 
The two constitute not a bad definition of the theory of 
the true, not the play-acting, "progressives" of today. 

Mr. Jefferson, when he left Congress and went home 
to be elected to the House of Burgesses, had said, that 
he did it because the "laboring oar was really at home." 



96 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

It was eminently in keeping with all of his opinions and 
all of his future life, that he should have begun the 
work of democratizing American institutions, edu- 
cationally and socially and industrially, in the State — 
raising a standard for the other States — because the 
State was, as he later expressed it, the "surest safe- 
guard of repubUcan institutions." 

2. AN APOSTLE OF LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 

Jefferson has long been regarded as the apostle of 
local self-government. In his first inaugural address, 
in all his state papers, and in all of his letters, where 
there was any relevancy to the question, and in the 
Kentucky Resolutions, his apostleship is displayed; 
but for the most part, people have only the idea of 
States' Rights in their minds in connection with his 
position. Jefferson went further than that. Notwith- 
standing the Kentucky Resolutions, which were in 
content mainly, and in intent altogether, a State 
protest only, two men were never in all history really 
further apart than he and John C. Calhoun. He was 
very much enamoured with the old Saxon Communal 
Government, and he became early in life, and continued 
to his death, enamoured with the New England Town- 
ship System, a system which brings the direct govern- 
ment of the people, upon a small scale, into more 
perfect operation than any other institution in America. 

On May 26, 1810, after he had retired from the 
Presidency, he said in a letter to Governor Tyler: — 

"I have indeed two great measures at heart, without which no 
republic can maintain itself in strength. 1. That of general educa- 
tion, to enable every man to judge for himself what will secure or 
endanger his freedom. 2. To divide every county into hundreds, 



DEMOCRATIZER OF STATE INSTITUTIONS 97 

of such size that all the children of each will be within a central 
school in it. . . . These Uttle repubUcs would be the main strength 
of the great one. We owe to them the vigor given to our revolu- 
tion in its commencement in the Eastern States." 

To Joseph C. Cabell, on January 31, 1814, he writes: — 

"There are two subjects, indeed, which I claim a right to further 
as long as I breathe — the public education and the subdivision 
of counties into wards. I consider the continuance of republican 
government, as absolutely hanging on these two hooksJ' 

In another letter he says, to the same correspondent : 
"My friend, the way to have good and safe govern- 
ment is not to trust it all to one, but to divide it among 
the many, distributing to every one exactly the func- 
tions he is competent to." Then follows his sub- 
division, beginning with the national government and 
its proper functions, continuing through the state 
governments and a general description of what should 
concern them, to the counties, and then the ''wards," 
as he called them, or "townships," as they were called 
in New England. Of them he says: — 

"The elementary republics of these wards, the county republics, 
the State republics, and the republic of the Union, would form a 
gradation of authorities, standing each on the basis of law, holding 
every one its delegated share of powers, and constituting truly a 
system of fundamental balances and checks. . . . Where every man 
is a sharer in the direction of his ward republic, or of some of the 
higher ones, and feels that he is a participator in the government of 
affairs, not merely at an election one day in the year, but every day; 
... he will let the heart be torn out of his body sooner than his 
power be wrested from him by a Caesar or a Bonaparte." 

Then he exclaims: — 

"How powerfully did we feel the energy of this organization in 
the case of the Embargo? I felt the foundations of the government 
8 



98 PERIMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

shaken under my feet by the New England township . . . and, 
although the whole of the other States were known to be in favor 
of the measure, yet, the organization of this httle selfish minority 
enabled it to override the Union. ... As Cato once concluded 
every speech 'with the words, ' Carthago delenda est,' so do I every 
opinion with the injunction, 'divide the counties into wards.' 
Begin them only for a single purpose, they will soon show for what 
others they are the best instruments." 

Again, to Samuel Kercheval, on July 12, 1816: — 

"These wards, called townships in New England, are the vital 
principle of their government, and have proved themselves the 
wisest invention ever devised by the wit of men, for the perfect exercise 
of self-government, and for its preservation." 

Jefferson's definition of "a pure republic" is this: "A 
government by the citizens in mass, acting directly and 
personally, according to the rules established by the 
majority." (See Penn's definition on a previous page.) 
He acknowledges that these "pure republics" can 
exist only on areas so small that all citizens may 
readily meet together. 

With regard to local self-government, in another 
place, he says: — 

"Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a 
single government. Public servants at such a distance, and from 
under the eye of their constituents, must, from the circumstance of 
distance, be unable to administer and overlook all the details neces- 
sary for the good government of the citizens, and the same circum- 
stance, by rendering detection impossible to their constituents, will 
invite the pubUc servants to corruption, plunder and waste. . . . 
You have seen the practices by which the public servants have been 
able to cover their conduct, or, where that could not be done, the de- 
lusions by which they have varnished it for the eye of their constit- 
uents. What an augmentation of the field for jobbing, speculating, 



DEMOCRATIZER OF STATE INSTITUTIONS 99 

plundering, oflSce building and office hunting would be produced by 
an assumption of all the state powers into the hands of the general 
government." 

Whether the States are to remain indestructible and 
whether the precious blessing of local self-government 
upon smaller areas is to be perpetuated, depends upon 
the degree of concentration of governmental power at 
Washington. If it is carried too far, of course, the 
cords some day must snap, and if they do, one of ''the 
two hooks" upon which our destinies hang will have 
disappeared, ''the balance" will be lost, and no man is 
wise enough to foresee the ultimate result. The real 
balance in this Government is that between the States 
and the counties and the townships, on one side, and 
the Federal Government, on the other. These "lesser 
republics" have jurisdiction over nine-tenths of the 
questions which concern the individual in his daily life. 
It is even of more importance that the government of 
them should be wise and pure and free and enlightened, 
than it is that the National Government should be so. 
It is their not being so, which gives pretext for Federal 
usurpation. The ship has thus far weathered the gale, 
though with some broken spars and shredded sails. 

Montesquieu had written — and Montesquieu was a 
name held in high reverence in that day by all except 
Thomas Jefferson — that a republic was adapted only 
for a small territory, but Jefferson's conviction was 
precisely the contrary, if only it were a Federal Republic 
of limited, delegated powers. "A Republic of Repub- 
lics!" That is the name which Sage, of New Orleans, 
in a book by that title gave to our dual government. 



100 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

If it had gone further and read, "A Republic of Repub- 
lics and of Lesser Republics" — carrying the mind 
down to the county and township repubhcs, with their 
direct participation by all the people in democratic 
assemblies — it would have been thoroughly descrip- 
tive of Jefferson's ideal. 

Virginia had adopted a written constitution in 1776. 
It was adopted at a time when patriots were trying to 
get together, and when the main object in view was to 
put some sort of State government upon a legal footing, 
to take the place of the patriotic but irresponsible 
revolutionary committees. There were some un- 
democratic featm-es in it needing revision. Long 
afterwards, Samuel Kercheval wrote some letters on 
the subject and enclosed them to Jefferson, asking his 
advice. There is much of Jefifersonianism in Jefferson's 
reply, and of the sort which has exerted a permanent 
influence on our State institutions. In many respects, 
it is worthy to stand side by side with ''The Sunomary 
View," the great ''Declaration of Independence," the 
platform letter to Elbridge Gerry in 1800, and the 
"First Inaugural," as an exponent of Americanism. 

This letter appears in full as Appendix 29 to be found 
in the third volume of Randall's "Life of Jefferson," 
page 647. It was dated July 12, 1816. Excerpts from 
which are as follows: — 

"In truth, the abuses of monarchy had so much filled all the 
space of our political contemplation, that we imagined everything 
republican, which was not monarchy. We had not yet -penetrated 
to the mother principle that 'governments are republican only in 
proportion as they embody the will of their people, and execute it.* 
Hence, our first constitutions had really no leading principle in 
them. But experience and reflection have but more and more 



DEMOCRATIZER OF STATE INSTITUTIONS 101 

confirmed me in the particular importance of the equal representa- 
tion then proposed. 

"In the Legislature" (of Virginia) "the House of Representatives 
is chosen by less than half the people, and not at all in proportion 
to those who do choose. The Senators are still more dispropor- 
tionate, and for long terms of irresponsibility. In the Executive, 
the Governor is entirely independent of the choice of the people, and 
of their control; his council equally so, and at best but a fifth wheel 
to a wagon. In the Judiciary the judges of the highest courts are 
dependent on none but themselves. In England, where judges were 
named and removable at the will of an hereditary executive, from 
which branch most misrule was feared and has flowed, it was a 
great point gained, by fixing them for life, to make them inde- 
pendent of the executive. But in a government founded on the 
public will, this principle operates in an opposite direction, and 
against that will. There, too, they were still removable on a 
concurrence of the executive and legislative branches. But we 
have made them independent of the nation itself." 

This utterance, and what follows about judges, with 
its cool, limpid reasoning, was and is of far-reaching 
influence. 

In Jefferson's day all State judges, as far as I have 
learned, except in Connecticut, were appointed. In 
the twenties he urged their election for fixed terms in 
Virginia, and cited the success of the experiment in 
Connecticut. By the time the Democracy had de- 
veloped itself further under Jackson, they were nearly 
everywhere elected, and life tenure was abolished 
everywhere, except with the Federal Judiciary. Thus 
all three branches of the government became democ- 
ratized. 

Of the Revolutionary constitutions, very few, if any, 
were submitted to the people, they being adopted by 
conventions alone. 



102 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

Beginning with ''the word" — under Jefferson, and 
culminating with the deed under Jackson, constitutions 
began everywhere to be submitted to the people for their 
ratification; that is, nearly everywhere. Some few 
very conservative States never did submit them. No 
constitution of Mississippi, for example, except one, 
was ever submitted to the people, the people seeming 
to think that they can get a wiser, better fundamental 
law, if they elect the very best men to constitute a 
constitutional convention, and leave them with plenary 
power. This was all a growth out of Mr. Jefferson's 
doctrine that he wanted ''frequent recurrence to 
fundamental principles." 

Recurring in this letter to his favorite scheme for 
the complete democratization of Virginia — dividing 
the counties into wards and giving them direct self- 
government to a certain extent similar to the New 
England township system — he says : — 

"The organization of our county administrations may be 
thought more difficult. But follow principle, and the knot unties 
itself. Divide the counties into wards of such size as that every 
citizen can attend when called on, and act in person. Ascribe 
to them the government of their wards in all things relating to 
themselves exclusively. A justice, chosen by themselves, in each; 
a constable, a miUtary company, a patrol, a school; the care of their 
own poor, their own portion of the public roads, etc. . . . These 
wards, called towmships in New England, are the vital principles 
of their governments, and have proved themselves the wisest invention 
ever devised by the wit of man for the perfect exercise of self-government, 
and for its preservation. We should thus marshal out government 
into, 1. The general federal republic, for all concerns foreign and 
federal; 2. That of the state, for what relates to our own citizens ex- 
clusively; 3. The county repubUcs, for the duties and concerns of the 
county; and, 4. The ward republics, for the small, and yet numerous 



DEMOCRATIZER OF STATE INSTITUTIONS 103 

and interesting concerns of the neighborhood; and in government, 
as well as in every other business of life, it is by division and sub- 
division of duties alone, that all matters, great and small, can be 
managed to perfection. And the whole is cemented by giving to 
every citizen, personally, a part in the administration of the public 
affairs." 

After this, he sums up the whole situation and 
expresses the philosophy underlying it : — 

"The sum of these amendments is: 1. General suffrage; 2. Equal 
representation in the Legislature; 3. Judges elected or amovable; 

5. Justices, jurors" (evidently grand jurors) "and sheriffs elective; 

6. Ward divisions; and, 7. Periodical amendments of the Consti- 
tution. 

"I have thrown out those, as loose heads of amendment for con- 
sideration and correction; and their object is to secure self-govern- 
ment by the republicanism of our constitution, as well as by the 
spirit of the people; and to nourish and perpetuate that spirit. I 
am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, 
are our dependence for continued freedom. And to preserve their 
independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual 
debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, 
or profusion and servitude." 

In this last sentence is the doctrine of ^'Jeffersonian 
simplicity." 

Note the summing up and remember how — gradu- 
ally beginning the work then and substantially com- 
pleting it under Andrew Jackson — his political dis- 
ciples pursued his instructions in nearly all the States, 
and in every case (except the election of grand jurors 
and (7), the last), to a successful consummation. He 
came afterwards, as I shall show later in my lecture on 
Educational Influence, to modify his views on the 
suffrage, to the extent, of desiring an educational, or 
reading and writing, qualification. This is being 
gradually adopted, and will be universally. 



104 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

Dr. Grigsby says in his discourses on the Virginia 
Convention of 1776: — 

"The first Constitution of Virginia withstood, for nearly forty 
years, his (Jefferson's) attacks in the Notes; but when he threw his 
thoughts into the shape of a letter to Kercheval, the fate of that 
instrument was sealed. The phrases of that letter were at once 
stereotyped in the pubUc voice; and it was amusing to observe on 
the court green, and in debate, how these phrases passed current 
with men, who had never seen or heard of the letter, and who 
believed that they were clothing their own thoughts in their own 
words." 

And this summary, too, by Watson is well worth 
reading and well worth remembering: — 

"The ink of the Declaration of Independence was hardly dry 
when this same 'timid' Jefferson hurried to Virginia, challenged the 
proud, strong aristocracy of the Old Dominion to the field, and 
unhorsed it in fair fight. Then he accomplished what French 
Revolutionists found it hard to do, and what Mr. Gladstone found 
it so hard to do in Ireland, and what no man has been able to do 
in England to this day — he disestabUshed the State church. 

* ' Not only that ! He told the whites they ought to free the blacks ; 
and told the rich they ought to tax themselves to educate the 
poor." . . . 

"Yet so scholarly a writer as Henry Cabot Lodge, makes 
'timidity' a saUent feature of Jefferson's character; and Mr. Roose- 
velt continually repeats that he was 'weak and vacillating.'" 

What I am now about to quote from Jefferson, I select 
to repeat and emphasize that it was not alone the state 
governments, but the county and town governments, 
within their several spheres, for the full vigor of which 
he always contended: — 



DEMOCRATIZER OF STATE INSTITUTIONS 105 

"But the true barriers of liberty in this country are our state 
[ governments; and the wisest conservative power ever contrived 
J by man is that of which our revolution and present government 
found us possessed. Seventeen distinct states, amalgamated into 
one, as to their foreign concerns, but single and independent as to 
their internal administration, regularly organized with a legislature 
and governor resting on the choice of the people, and enlightened 
by a free press, can never be so fascinated by the arts of one man, 
as to submit voluntarily to his usurpation. Nor can they be con- 
strained to it by any force he can possess. While they may paralyze 
the single state in which it happens to be encamped, sixteen others, 
spread over a country of two thousand miles diameter, rise up on 
every side, ready organized for deliberation by a constitutional 
legislature, and for action by their governor, constitutionally the 
commander of the militia of the state — that is to say, of every 
man in it able to bear arms — and that miUtia, too, regularly formed 
into regiments and battalions, into infantry, cavalry and artillery, 
trained under officers, general and subordinate, legally appointed, 
always in readiness, and to whom they are already in habits of 
obedience. The republican government of France was lost without 
a struggle, because the party of 'un et indivisible' had prevailed, 
no provincial organizations existed to which the people might rally, 
under authority of the laws, the seats of the directory were virtually 
vacant, and a small force was sufficient to turn the legislature out 
of their chamber, and to salute its leader chief of the nation." 

In ''Jefferson and His Political Philosophy," by Mary 
Plate Parmelee, she says of Jefferson's great and rest- 
less mind, that ''it was a laboratory and not a store- 
house," and that, "He believed that the ideal govern- 
ment should be framed not so much to restrain the 
popular will as to express it; not to obstruct, but to 
execute it." 

We can only wonder that the hatred of Jefferson was 
not greater. He offended in turn each entrenched 
class. Take that one expression of his: "I tremble for 



106 PERIVIANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

my country when I think of the negro and know that 
God is just." These are words uttered by Thomas 
Jefferson in Virginia — by a slaveholder in the midst of 
slaveholders — and not by Lincoln in Illinois, nor by 
Garrison or Sumner in Massachusetts, where they 
would have been popular! 



CHAPTER IV 

JEFFERSON'S INFLUENCE AS A DIPLOMAT 

There is no use for my purpose in detailing dates and 
circumstances of Jefferson's being sent to France. 
He is there first with two colleagues, John Adams and 
Benjamin Franklin, as Envoys Extraordinary, and 
subsequently alone as Minister to France. He was 
not only lucky in having succeeded Mr. Franklin as 
Minister, but he was lucky in this: that America was 
then itself, as Franklin was, a sort of fad in Paris with 
litterateurs, and even with courtiers. 

There was not much for Jefferson to do in France of 
weighty concern to our prosperity. He did obtain the 
admission of our products on favorable terms, as com- 
pared with those of other nations, and a mitigation of 
the Government tobacco monopoly. In fact, con- 
sidering how the ghost of the mercantile theory still 
had its fingers around the throats of all the ruling 
spirits in nearly every nation, he did a good deal. He 
gave a sensible stimulus to our policy of Reciprocity. 
In his diplomatic correspondence he shows himseK 
fully in possession of those economical principles the 
soundness of which Adam Smith was demonstrating. 

He writes to the French Premier that France "could 
not expect America to come to her to purchase, when 
she did not take American commodities in return," 
thus impressing the great economical truth, that, after 

107 



108 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

all, commodities are somehow, somewhere, paid for 
with other commodities. 

Finally, before he left he had a battle royal with the 
protective system, which was shutting the ports of 
France against food when Frenchmen were dying for 
the lack of it; ''and spent his last days, even his last 
hours, in Paris, in trying to persuade the Ministry to 
permit the importation of salted provisions from the 
United States," and failed! Parton epitomizes the 
interview dehghtfuUy. ''Salt beef," objected the Count 
de Montmorin, "will give the people scurvy." "No," 
replied Jefferson, "we eat it in America and we don't 
have the scurvy." "The salt tax will fall off," said the 
Minister. Jefferson could not deny that it might a 
httle; but, on the other hand, "it would relieve the 
Government from the necessity of keeping the price of 
bread below its value." "But," resumed the Count, 
"the people of France will not buy salt meat." 
"Then," replied Jefferson, "the merchants won't 
import it, and no harm will be done." "And you 
cannot make a good soup out of it," urged the Count. 
"True," said Jefferson, "but it gives a delightful flavor 
to vegetables. Besides it will cost only half the price 
of fresh meat." 

Ridiculous, isn't it? But this last year our people 
were paying three prices for Irish potatoes, and yet 
Congress could not be prevailed upon to suspend the 
import duty! 

Nothing, however, done by Jefferson in France as 

Envoy or as Minister can be said to have permanently 

affected our International Relations unless it be the 

/ so-called Model Treaty, which Franklin, Adams and 



INFLUENCE AS A DIPLOMAT 109 

he put in shape to be proffered by us to all nations. 
James Parton says of this celebrated ''model draft of 
a treaty": ''What an amiable, harmless, useless docu- 
ment it seems! But it was the first serious attempt 
ever made to conduct the intercourse of nations on 
Christian principles; and it was made by three men to 
whom ignorance has sometimes denied the name of 
Christians." This is a partial error. The instructions 
to our Ministers abroad, drawn by Jefferson, when he 
was a member of the Continental Congress, was the 
"first attempt" of this sort, and "the model treaty" 
and it are so much alike that plainly the latter is based 
on the former. I expect, if I live to the Scriptural 
Hmit of age, to see the main provisions of that treaty 
adopted by the civilized nations of the earth in their 
intercourse with one another, thereby confining the 
evils of war — always unnecessary and barbarous — 
within as narrow limits as possible. Already priva- 
teering has been abolished, which was one of the things 
the authors of "the model treaty" sought. The whole 
world admits, that there ought to be no confiscation of 
neutral property — another thing they sought. I hope 
the day is not far distant, when war will bring "no 
molestation to fishermen, farmers," and other non- 
combatants, and "no useless ravaging of the enemy's 
coast at a point where the enemy has no ships or 
arms," which constituted another of their aims. 

Another of their objects was that there should be, "no 
crowding of prisoners of war into unwholesome places." 
Already this example had been set by Jefferson's advice 
and active aid among "the sweet hills of Albemarle," 
where nearly a whole county and the open air had 



110 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

constituted the only prison of our British and Hessian 
captives. Some day a nation will not call itself respect- 
able which does not obey the precept of the Model 
Treaty on this head. And why should we not hope to 
see the day when Article XVII shall be in effect? That 
Article read : — 

"If the citizens or subjects of either party, in danger from 
tempests, pirates, or other accidents, shall take refuge with their 
vessels within the harbors or jurisdiction of the other, they shall 
be received, protected, and treated with humanity and kindness, 
and shall be permitted to furnish themselves at reasonable prices, 
with all the refreshments, provisions, and other things necessary 
for their subsistence, health, and accommodation, and for the repairs 
of their vessels." 

Are not people anyhow somewhat too prone to call 
humanly attainable things "visionary"? Was not old 
George Washington practical? He said of that draft 
of a treaty that it "marks a new era in negotiation," 
and "old Frederick of Prussia," as Jefferson calls him, 
was a right hard-headed old fellow, and he entered into 
a treaty with us containing substantially these things. 
Let us not take for granted that people, who want to 
improve the world and make nations treat one another 
just as civilized gentlemen treat one another, are 
necessarily vision-seeers. May be, it might be wiser to 
drop one e, and call them seers instead? 

Parton says, and I cannot make up my mind whether 
he says it in derision or in earnest: — 

"In short, the conamission to negotiate commercial treaties 
had but one important result, namely, the composition of the draft 
of the treaty and its preservation in the Diplomatic Correspondence 
of the United States against the time when nations shall want it." 



INFLUENCE AS A DIPLOMAT 111 

May God speed the coming of the time, and may- 
God equally speed the cessation of talk about such a 
time as ''impracticable" and "visionary!" If, as he 
says, the treaty ''remains only as an admonition and a 
prophecy," it is at least an admonition Godward, 
because Peaceward; and a prophecy which will be ful- 
filled, if the world grows from mere civilization to that 
enlightenment, where "the common sense of most" 
can "hold a fretful realm in awe." 

Jefferson had made an excellent foreign minister. 
In the transaction of his official duties and of those 
extra official duties, which consume so much of a 
foreign minister's time, he had been patient, tactful, 
courteous and wise. His dispatches home are among 
the greatest state papers which we have. He had 
shown himself in France, as earlier in Virginia and later 
at Philadelphia and Washington, an excellent judge of 
men. Even Judge Marshall, who hated him, says: 
"and in that situation" (that is, as Minister to France) 
"he acquitted himself much to the public satisfac- 
tion." 

Later Webster, who had no great use for Jefferson, 
speaking of his services abroad, says: "No court in 
Europe had at that time in Paris a representative 
commanding or enjoying higher regard, for political 
knowledge, or for general attainments, than the 
minister of this then infant republic." 

The contemporaneous Edinburgh Review referred to 
his "watchfulness on every subject," his perseverance, 
his skill and knowledge, as not suffering in comparison 
even with Franklin's diplomatic talents, and to his 
pubUc letters as "exceUing in excellence an equal 



112 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

twelve month's letters from any British Ambassa- 
dor." 

But it was as Secretary of State and President that 
Jefferson left a lasting impress on this Government's 
International Relations. 

On his way from Norfolk to Monticello after he had 
landed in America, he received the letter from General 
Washington offering him the place of Secretary of 
State, really then, as now, the Cabinet Premiership. 
Jefferson reluctantly forewent his desire to remain in 
the diplomatic service and accepted. He arrived in 
New York, after a visit on the way to his old friend 
Benjamin Franklin, and immediately took up the three 
months arrears of work in the Department of State. 

As almost the first thing, the reader may compare, 
certainly with credit to Jefferson, not only in point of 
patriotism, but in point of prescience, his words, as 
Secretary of State, asserting the right of navigation of 
the Mississippi River — with its subsequent tame 
surrender for twenty-five years by Jay, as Foreign 
Minister, and by Washington, as President, in the 
memorable Jay Treaty. 

Jefferson's letters of instruction to Carmichael and 
Short on this subject are instructive and interesting, 
especially in this: that he based our claim not only on 
the Treaty of Paris of '63 and the Treaty of 1782-83, 
but characteristically upon the announcement of an 
"abstract proposition," to wit: that "the right to a 
thing gives a right to the means without which the thing 
can not be used." He calls this a "still broader and 
more unquestionable ground," than the treaty grounds, 
and adds that, "if the right of the upper inhabitants to 



INFLUENCE AS A DIPLOMAT 113 

descend a stream is in any case obstructed, it is but an 
act of force by a stronger society against a weaker, and 
is condemned by the judgment of mankind." 

Anticipating that Spain might make the argument, 
that, if she granted the navigation of the Mississippi 
to the United States, she must Hkewise, under the 
''most favored nation" clause of her treaties, grant it 
to others, he denies that the most favored nation clause 
could be invoked, because ''Spain does not grant us the , 
navigation of the river; we have an inherent right to it.'' 

On the 24th of April the first Federal precedent of 
our position to be taken in matters of extradition was 
settled, and our time-honored policy with regard to 
political offenses was initiated. An extract from 
Jefferson's instructions will explain itself. The reader 
will see from reading it that this, too, was the beginning 
of a permanent policy on the part of our Government : — 

"Treason. This, when real, merits the highest punishment. 
But most codes extend their definitions of treason to acts not 
really against one's country. They do not distinguish between 
acts against the government and acts against the oppressions of 
(he government; the latter are virtues; yet they have furnished more 
victims to the executioner than the former; because real treasons 
are rare; oppressions frequent. The imsuccessful strugglers against 
tyrarmy, have been the chief martyrs of treason laws of all countries. 

" Reformation of government with our neighbors, being as much 
wanted now as reformation of religion is, or ever was anywhere, 
we should not wish, then, to give up to the executioner, the patriot 
who fails, and flees to us. Treasons, then — taking the simulated 
with the real — are sufficiently punished by exile." 

Soon after, Jefferson had to meet, for the first time in 
our history, another troublesome question : the question 
of how far the dual character of our republic must be 
9 



114 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

considered by foreign nations in the interpretation of 
treaties with the United States. The United States 
had undertaken to secure that there should be no legal 
obstructions to the collections of debts due to British 
subjects. The British had cause to complain, because 
there were obstructions in the State Statutes, and they 
were holding our frontier forts until we had complied 
with the treaty, in the way that they construed it. 

Upon this question Jefferson and Hamilton came into 
clash. Jefferson was requested to put his views in 
writing and hand them to the President, which was 
done. In this paper he took the position that the 
British Government must have understood beforehand 
the dual nature of our institutions; what would be the 
force and extent of a Federal power; and that any inter- 
ference with the States by the United States, as a 
Government, must be, to use his own language, ''not a 
matter of obUgation, or coercion, but of persuasion and 
influence merely," as the United States Government 
under our system had not power to control State Legis- 
latures or State Courts, and could not be taken to have 
stipulated in the treaty to do what it could not do; that 
the Government had observed the treaty to the 
extent of its power by making reconomendations and 
by using all its influence. This precedent, too, all 
intelligent Presidents and Secretaries of State have 
since followed. 

Jefferson, being our first Secretary of State, his acts 
and utterances, have had a more permanent effect upon 
our history with regard to international affairs than 
those of any other man. In many matters he was 
overridden by the Cabinet, but not with regard to 



INFLUENCE AS A DIPLOMAT 115 

foreign affairs. In fact, in some instances, the Presi- 
dent supported him against all the balance of the 
Cabinet — a very, very rare thing for Washington to 
do — so rare that I have no knowledge of his having 
done it with regard to any of his other Secretaries. 

Early in November, America heard with astonish- 
ment of the dethronement and imprisonment of the 
King of France, and a Cabinet consultation was held 
upon the subject — whether we should suspend our 
payment of the French debt. Jefferson thus sums up 
what occurred: — 

"I admitted that the late Constitution was dissolved by the 
dethronement of the King; and the management of affairs surviving 
to the National Assembly only, that this was not an integral legis- 
lature, and therefore not competent to give a legitimate discharge 
for our payment; that I thought consequently that none should be 
made until some legitimate body came into place; that I should 
consider the National Convention called, but not yet met, to be a 
legitimate body. Hamilton doubted whether it would be a legiti- 
mate body, and whether, if the King should be re-estabhshed, he 
might not disallow such payments, on good grounds." 

The Cabinet meeting ended by an agreement that 
Jefferson was to write to Gouverneur Morris to suspend 
payment "till further orders." These further orders 
were sent, when the National Convention " came into 
place," to the effect that we acknowledge the obligation 
of the debt and were ready to pay what was due. 
The policy here outlined, as Jefferson's opinion, became 
a permanent poUcy in our Government. Foreign debts 
ever since have been regarded by us as International, 
not Inter-dynastic. 

On September 19th, in a letter to our Minister in 
England, Jefferson outlined what he called the "Cath- 



116 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

olic Principle of Republicanism," as regards recogni- 
tion of governments. It is this: — 

"We certainly cannot deny to other nations that principle, 
whereon our own government is founded; that every nation has a 
right to govern itself internally, under what form it pleases, and to 
change these forms, at its own will ; and, externally, to transact 
business with other nations through whatever organ it chooses, 
whether that be a King, Convention, Assembly, Committee, Presi- 
dent, or whatever it be. The only thing essential is, the will of the 
nation. Taking this as your polar star, you can hardly err." 

He had already said: "Principles being understood 
their application will be less embarrassing." 

This "Catholic Principle of Republicanism" was not 
only a "polar star" to guide our then Minister to St. 
James, but all American Ministers everywhere ever 
since, and all Secretaries of State. We have never 
arrogated to ourselves the right, which the coalition of 
Kings then, and the Holy Alliance later, arrogated to 
themselves, to sit in judgment upon the form of govern- 
ment and the administration of domestic affairs in any 
country on the ground that its "principles are danger- 
ous." The only question with us is the truly republican 
and democratic one: Is the actual government that 
which the people of the country in question have 
drawn over themselves? 

I think it is well enough here, in view of coming 
events, then already casting their shadows before 
them, to treat the question of our treaties with France. 
France had given us money; lent us money; furnished 
fleets and armies, to gain our independence, and all 
the compensation she ever demanded was the fulfill- 
ment, not of all, but of some, of the promises contained 



INFLUENCE AS A DIPLOMAT 117 

in these treaties, which, in many material aspects, 
became later broken promises. I am not saying that 
some of the promises ought not to have been broken. 
Without deciding the question, I am not prepared to 
take the stand that a nation must abide indissolubly 
by the written language of treaties, even to its own 
probable destruction, or very great hurt. Certainly, 
the first duty of a nation, as well as its most natural 
desire, is self-preservation. At any rate Washington, 
a very just man, thought so. And Jefferson, as his 
Secretary of State, in spite of his love for the French 
people, and of republican institutions, went with him, 
in the course of a strict neutrality, which necessarily 
violated some of the provisions of the French Treaty. 

We ought to have paid the French debt, because we 
owed the money, and we owed much more than the 
accounts showed; but we could afford to do what 
Jefferson reconmaended with regard to the guarantee — 
hold it in abeyance until expressly called upon to make it 
good. 

Thomas E. Watson says that this neutral position 
"kept us from deriving any benefits from the victories 
of Napoleon." But it must be remembered that the 
victories of Napoleon could have done us no good. His 
victories were on land, and the victories to save us, 
must have been on sea, where Napoleon could no more 
have helped us, than he proved able to help Denmark, 
or Holland, or Spain. 

On this point read Jefferson's letter to President 
Washington, giving his opinion concerning the French 
treaties, and concerning how the French Minister 
should be received. It is perhaps the ablest of his 



118 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

papers treating international affairs. It is dated April 
28th, 1793. It is one of the most forceful and lucid 
statements of the principle, which binds nations to 
their pHghted word, that has ever been penned, and 
Washington yielded to the reasoning, notwithstanding 
the special and specious pleading contained in Hamil- 
ton's letter supporting the contrary view. He decided 
that the treaties with France remained in full force, 
and that the Minister from the French Republic 
should be received in the usual way and without the 
quahfications which Hamilton suggested. Ever since 
it has been our policy to treat Ministers also as National 
and not as Dynastic agents. 

The Federalists inmaediately began to oppose our 
observing the French treaties upon two grounds. The 
first ground, or pretext, was puerile in its character, to 
wit, that the treaty was "not made with France, but 
with Louis XVI," or ''Louis Capet," as they called 
him in their arguments, who, being dethroned, left us, 
as they contended, under no international obhgations 
to France, ''except those which flowed from the general 
principles of international law." The excuses which 
Aesop's wolf gave for eating up Aesop's lamb are the 
only precedents which I know, which could justify this 
bare-faced pretext to breach a solemn covenant. The 
second reason was that our guarantee came into force 
only in case of "a defensive war." The reply to that 
is that the language of the treaty of aUiance, in Articles 
XI and XII, does not bear it out, but expressly declares 
the opposite. 

Clearly, if language be given to express, and not to 
conceal ideas. Article XVII of the Treaty of Amity 



INFLUENCE AS A DIPLOMAT 119 

and Commerce gave to French ships of war and pri- 
vateers the right to enter and harbor themselves in 
any of our ports, carrying with them their prizes. We 
surrendered even the right of making examination, as 
to the lawfulness of the prize. That is not all; there 
was a clear and distinct promise, on our part, that we 
would not give shelter, or refuge, to the ships of war 
and privateers of a nation at war with France, and that 
even if stress of weather forced them to take temporary 
refuge with us, they must go out, as soon as possible. 
On this head two things were afterward contended: 
first, that France had no right to bring prizes within 
our ports, and secondly, that permitting her, out of 
our grace, to exercise such a privilege, we not only had 
the right, but it was our duty as a neutral nation, to 
extend the same privileges to England. Both of these 
contentions were in the very teeth of the express pro- 
visions of Article XXII of the Treaty of Amity and 
Commerce. 

Whatever reasoning, good or specious, may be used 
to justify or excuse our Government for the violation 
of these special provisions of the two treaties, it is 
well, in the interest of candor and truth, that every- 
body should cease to deny that they were violated. 
The fact ought to be admitted simply because it is a 
fact, and not be glossed over. The material results of 
the violation were happy for us, and, it may be, for the 
entire world; happy for us, because our States were 
perhaps then too loosely united to have withstood the 
convulsions of a foreign war, which would have been 
accompanied undoubtedly by internal dissensions. 
New England would have taken, had we stood by our 



120 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

alliance with France, against Great Britain, under 
Washington's administration, the same position which 
she afterwards took under Madison's, and pubhcly 
advertised, while resisting the embargo, that she would 
take under Jefferson's, if he dared to go to war with 
England. Her position became less dangerous to the 
Union just in proportion as meeting it was postponed, 
while the West grew. There was no man then, who 
entertained a doubt of the right of a State to withdraw 
from the Union. At any rate, Washington would have 
felt, as Jefferson afterwards confessed that he felt, 
''the foundations of the government shaken under 
his feet by the action of the New England Townships." 
Moreover, even if we had gone through the war suc- 
cessfully and unitedly, we were then so hampered in 
our finances, that we would have emerged temporarily 
bankrupt, or if not that, at least after the issue and 
depreciation of another immense mass of paper money. 
The results were happy for the civilized world, too, 
because, if, at that early date, before England — 
always, hke ourselves, ''an unready nation" — had 
organized her fighting strength, we had kept a part of 
her navy busy on this side of the Atlantic, it is possible, 
though not certain, that the great Napoleon might have 
realized his dream of world-empire. Notwithstanding 
all this, however, it will be seen that those, who denied 
the right of the Executive to issue a declaration of 
neutrahty, forestalling the action of Congress and 
violating the written provisions of the French treaties, 
were not nearly so clearly wrong, as the respect and 
the reverence of the American people for the character 
and memory of George Washington have led them easily 



INFLUENCE AS A DIPLOMAT 121 

to believe. The argument that France had done all she 
did for us, not really out of love for us, but out of 
hatred of Great Britain, although an argument founded 
on fact, is not a valid one. We accepted her assist- 
ance — knowing her motive — accepted her guarantees 
in the treaty, as the reciprocals of ours and as safe- 
guards of our national existence and independence, when 
we were in our very infancy, and thought that we needed 
safeguards, whether we did or not. However, we were 
relieved from the awkwardness of our situation very 
much by the fact that Genet, who succeeded Ternant, 
when officially presented, said to Jefferson, Secretary 
of State: ''we know, that, under present circum- 
stances, we have a right to call upon you for the 
guarantee of our islands. But we do not desire it. 
We will wish you to do nothing but what is for your own 
good, and we will do all in our power to promote it. 
Cherish your own peace and prosperity." 

It was at this time, and not later — when Genet had 
turned fool — that Jefferson expressed to Madison his 
oft-quoted appreciation in these words: '' It is impossible 
for anything to be more affectionate, more mag- 
nanimous, than the purport of his [Genet's] mission," 
and added in another part of the letter: "In short he 
offers everything and asks nothing." 

Jefferson was all the more gratified at Genet's high- 
flown, though short-lived, magnanimity, because he 
had evidently expected him to call upon us to comply 
at once with our treaty obligations. This is my 
inference, but I hazard it, because at the very begin- 
ning of Genet's queer doings in America, while he was 
being welcomed in Philadelphia with enthusiasm, after 



122 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

his equally enthusiastic welcome at Charleston, Jeffer- 
son wrote to Monroe: ''I wish that we may be able to 
repress the people within the limits of a fair neutrahty." 
This shows that he was that early determined on 
neutrahty, and afraid that the hand of the administra- 
tion might be forced by the popular enthusiasm for 
France, with which he then sympathized. 

Mr. Foster, in his "Century of American Diplo- 
macy," writes with a distinct Federalistic and anti- 
Jeff ersonian bias — ''leads up" — as Mark Twain said 
he did to one of his poetical quotations — to injurious 
things he wants to say about Jefferson. Many of 
them are purely personal, like his laborious lugging in 
of Tom Moore's false couplet, which had naught to do 
with a history of ''Diplomacy." 

It will be noted that Jefferson, to whom the real 
credit is due for setting forth, in the ablest State 
paper ever written — in a way so masterly that it 
has never been improved on — the whole doctrine of 
neutrality and its special advantages to us, is not 
given the credit by Mr. Foster. The truth is that, as 
far as our foreign relations under Washington are 
concerned, they were, for the most part, an expression 
of Jefferson's policies. 

In proof of what I say here, read the unequalled state- 
ment by Mr. Jefferson as President of the duties of a 
neutral: — 

" Let it be our endeavor, as it is our interest and desire, to culti- 
vate the friendship of the belligerent nations by every act of justice 
and of innocent kindness; to receive their armed vessels with hospi- 
tality, from the distresses of the sea, but to administer the means 
of annoyance to none; to establish in our harbors such a police as 
may maintain law and order; to restrain our citizens from embarking 



INFLUENCE AS A DIPLOMAT 123 

individually in a war in which their country takes no part; to punish 
severely those persons, citizens or aliens, who shall usurp the cover 
of our flag for vessels not entitled to it, infecting thereby with 
suspicion those of real Americans, and committing us into contro- 
versies for the redress of wrongs not our own; to exact from every 
nation the observance, towards our vessels and citizens, of those 
principles and practices which all civilized nations acknowledge; 
to merit the character of a just nation, and maintain that of an 
independent one, preferring every consequence to insult and 
habitual wrong." 

And these further hnes, where he tells how neutral 
conduct especially redounds to the interest of this 
country and its people: — 

"Separated by a wide ocean from the nations of Europe, and 
from the poUtical interests which entangle them together, with pro- 
ductions and wants which render our commerce and friendship 
useful to them, and theirs to us, it cannot be the interest of any to 
assail us, nor ours to disturb them. We should be most unwise, 
indeed, were we to cast away the singular blessings of the position 
in which nature has placed us, the opportunity she has endowed us 
with, of pursuing, at a distance from foreign contentions, the paths 
of industry, peace and happiness; of cultivating general friendship; 
and of bringing colhsions of interest to the umpirage of reason rather 
than of force. How desirable, then, must it be, in a government 
like ours, to see its citizens adopt, individually, the views, the in- 
terests, and the conduct, which their country should pursue, divest- 
ing themselves of those passions and partiaUties which tend to 
lessen useful friendships, and to embarras and embroil us in the 
calamitous scenes of Europe. Confident, fellow citizens, that you 
will duly estimate the importance of neutral dispositions towards 
the observance of neutral conduct, that you will be sensible how 
much it is our duty to look on the bloody arena spread before us, 
with commiseration, indeed, but with no other wish than to see it 
closed, I am persuaded that you will certainly cherish those dis- 
positions in all discussions among yourselves, and in all commu- 
nications with your constituents." 



124 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

And yet, ''history-writers," as the children call 
them, of the Federalistic type, represent him as having 
been ''forced to a system of neutrality by the Presi- 
dent." The truth is that, although the bulk of Jeffer- 
son's party were carried off their feet temporarily by 
sympathy with France and though her people had his 
heart-felt good wishes, he never permitted his gaze to 
be deflected from the interests of his own country. 

When Genet carried things entirely too far and threat- 
ened to "appeal from the President to the people," 
and all that, the question arose in the Cabinet, as to 
what should be done, and here again Jefferson kept his 
head. Knox wanted to send Genet out of the country 
"by a public order without ceremony." Hamilton, 
who was an astute party manager, wanted to publish 
the correspondence on both sides, accompanied by a 
statement on the part of the Government of its pro- 
ceedings, in order to arouse popular feeling against 
France — rightly counting that the people would not, 
in their anger at Genet's treatment of Washington, 
distinguish between France and her Minister. Jeffer- 
son coolly advised that the usual course be pursued, 
which was that we send an account of the affair to the 
French Government, and demand the recall of Genet. 
George Washington, cool-headed himself on this oc- 
casion, and on most occasions — though not on all — 
sided with Jefferson. The complaint and the demand 
were made. They were acceded to. Genet was 
recalled, and that tempest in a tea-pot became com- 
paratively a calm. 

In Jefferson's communication to the American 
Commissioners at Madrid, on June 30th, he uses this 



INFLUENCE AS A DIPLOMAT 125 

language, which should, if it does not, constitute 
permaneritly a part of the very soul of our relations with 
foreign nations: — 

"We love and we value peace; we know its blessings from ex- 
perience; we abhor the follies of war, and are not untried in its 
distresses and calamities. Unmeddling with the affairs of other 
nations, we have hoped that our distance and our disposition would 
have left us free in the example and indulgence of peace with all the 
world. . . . We confide in our strength without boasting of it; we 
respect that of others without fearing it." 

That is crisp and lofty. Its style is Demosthenic. 

The two wise heads in the Cabinet were determined, 
if they could help it, not to have war with anybody, 
although our relations with Great Britain and France 
both, as well as with Spain, were becoming daily more 
and more embarrassing. In addition, the people of 
the United States, as some foreigner, then visiting us, 
reported, "were all either Englishmen, or Frenchmen, 
and none Americans." Washington was standing firm 
and prudent. His critics said, as others said a dozen 
years later of Jefferson, that his course was ''over- 
cautious" and ''pusillanimous." 

Jefferson's request for the recall of Genet was dated 
August 16th. In his dispatch he uses this language: 
"If our citizens here have not already been shedding 
each other's blood, it is not owing to the moderation of 
Mr. Genet." This from Jefferson had greater effect 
in France than if written by any man in the world, not 
a Frenchman. Genet was not only recalled, but in 
such spirit, that he was afraid to return to France, and 
settled in America. 

While Secretary of State, in a letter to Chancellor 



126 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

Livingston, who was on the eve of departing for 
France, to be our Minister there, he wrote, on Sep- 
tember 9th, a letter upon the question as to whether 
neutral ships should make free goods, in which he 
touched upon the question of blockade. The letter 
has, upon the whole, constituted the American doctrine 
upon these subjects, though some of the reasons given 
are in themselves curious, starting out, as Jefferson 
always liked to start, from grounds of natural and 
abstract right. This letter is well worth close study. 
To some extent, his doctrine concerning contraband is 
in advance even of the present European practice, but 
has constituted since, in the main, the American con- 
tention. 

For reasons unconnected with Diplomatic affairs 
Jefferson had determined to retire from the Cabinet. 
Washington had thus far kept him in office by appealing 
to him on the ground that it was not the part of a 
"general officer" to resign upon the anticipated out- 
break of war. Madison and his friends had added their 
voices for a far different reason. They wanted his 
party leadership on the spot. But on July 31, 1793, in 
spite of the solicitations of both President and friends — 
the ship of state being seemingly in safe harbor, so 
far as international billows could threaten her — he 
sent in his letter of resignation to take effect the 1st 
of September. 

On August 6th, after the receipt of this letter, the 
President called upon him. I think there was some- 
thing pathetic in George Washington's being chained 
to office, as a post of duty, and trying to chain Jefferson 
to it, at a time when both were tired nigh unto death 



INFLUENCE AS A DIPLOMAT 127 

of it all, and were yearning for the large and restful 
spaces of the plantation. He seems, even after all 
the warning he had had, to have taken Jefferson's 
letter in a hurt sort of way, because, upon this visit, 
he expressed his repentance at not having resigned 
himself, and said that that repentance was ''increased 
by seeing that he was to be deserted by those on whose 
aid he had counted." 

Finally, the President said, that if Jefferson could 
"only stay to the end of another quarter," which would 
be till the last of December, instead of the 1st of Sep- 
tember, the date fixed in Jefferson's note, "it would get 
us through the difficulties of this year," because he was 
''satisfied that the affairs of Europe would be settled 
at the end of the pending campaign — either France 
being overwhelmed, or the coalition retiring from the 
contest." Jefferson's party friends had begged him 
to do this too. He had positively refused them, but 
a few days afterwards he conceded that postponement 
to Washington, which he had refused to them. The 
President, in a letter, dated the 12th of August, puts 
in another plea to extend further the period for the 
resignation "until the close of the next session of 
Congress," for which he proffers many weighty reasons, 
relating to foreign powers, Indian disturbances, and 
internal policies. This persistency is touching. Wash- 
ington concludes his letter: "If this cannot be, my 
next wish is that your absence from the seat of Govern- 
ment in autumn may be as short as you can conven- 
iently make it." All this, notwithstanding the fact 
that many months had elapsed since Washington had 
lost his temper and sworn about Freneau, since Jeffer- 



128 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

son had entered in his diary that it was plain that he 
wanted him to dismiss Freneau, and then had added 
these measured words: ''but I will not do it," and did 
not; thereby giving Washington his choice of dis- 
missing both Freneau and him, or neither. Washington 
seems to have understood. Federalist ''history 
writers" and their political descendants are so dense! 

On December 21st, the President, who was untiring 
in his persistency, made another effort by letter to get 
Jefferson to postpone his resignation yet further, but 
this time without effect, and on December 31st, the 
last day of the quarter, as previously determined, 
Jefferson sent it in. Read that letter, following it with 
the perusal of Washington's reply. I think the reader 
must agree with me that the insinuations and charges 
of historians with Federalistic leanings — some of 
them writing not unrecently — that Washington "had 
grown to distrust Jefferson," and was "glad to get 
him out of the Cabinet," that Jefferson "was compelled 
to resign," are sufficiently refuted by the history of 
their relations up to this moment; in fact, proven to 
be stupendous ignorance, or else stupendous lies. If 
not, they are conclusively refuted by these two letters, 
unless the reader be prepared to consider both men 
thorough-paced hypocrites. Jefferson's was dated 
December 31, 1793. Washington's reply was dated 
the next day, January 1, 1794, at the same place. 

The message to the next Congress concerning our 
international relations, which was sent in on the fourth 
Monday in December, was prepared and left by Mr. 
Jefferson and signed by President Washington. A 
draft of it in his handwriting was among his Hterary 



INFLUENCE AS A DIPLOMAT 129 

remains, as was also the Presidential confidential 
message containing our diplomatic correspondence 
with Spain, which was sent in by the President on the 
16th of December. On this same day, in response to 
a resolution of the House, passed February 23, 1791, 
Jefferson's celebrated ''Report on the Privileges and 
Restrictions of the Commerce of the United States in 
Foreign Countries" was sent in. 

When Jefferson's diplomatic state papers were sent 
to Congress their tone, their total want of any foreign 
bias, their felicity, facihty and lucidness of expression, 
their ''sweet reasonableness," their dignity and firm- 
ness, their lack of either bullying or cringing, were the 
causes of spontaneous and irrestrainable public and 
private applause. 

Daniel Webster writes of Jefferson as Secretary of 
State as follows : — 

"Immediately upon his return to his native country ... his 
talents and experience recommended him to President Washington 
for the first office in his gift. He was placed at the head of the 
Department of State. In this situation, also, he manifested con- 
spicuous ability. His correspondence with the ministers of other 
powers residing here, and his instructions to our diplomatic agents 
abroad, are among our ablest State papers. A thorough knowledge 
of the laws and usages of nations, perfect acquaintance with the 
immediate subjects before him, great fehcity, and still greater facility 
in writing, show themselves in whatever effort his official situation 
called on him to make." 

Senator Vest, of Missouri, in an address at Columbia, 
Missouri, on June 4, 1885, expressed himself yet more 
glowingly. 

Even Judge Marshall writes grudgingly: "This 
gentleman withdrew from public station in a moment, 

10 



130 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

when he stood particularly high in the estimation of 
his countrymen," and then goes on to beUttle his 
grudging concession by explanations, which do not 
reduce it, but do reduce Marshall. 

If Jefferson was fortunate in the time of his retire- 
ment, as Marshall intimated, credit is due solely to Jef- 
ferson, because, except for his acts and efforts, we could 
not have emerged with peace and honor from our 
labyrinth of international difficulties, and the only 
fortunate thing about it, as far as Jefferson's fortunes 
were concerned, to wit, the universal applause which 
followed him, could not have existed. It is not too 
much to say that Jefferson had for these years virtually 
controlled the foreign policy of the United States. 
In no single case, that I can find, were his suggestions 
and propositions concerning foreign affairs in any 
essential overruled. He went reluctantly, it is true, 
into the violation of the French treaties, believing that 
State necessity alone justified it, but he saw as fully as 
Washington did the necessity of ''standing out from 
under" in every possibly honorable way. He never 
did, however, dishonor himself by denying the obli- 
gations of the treaties. He did not add hypocrisy to 
bad faith. He simply accepted the bad faith as the 
necessity of the situation, the less of two evils. A man 
has no right to sacrifice his honor to save his own life. 
But a public servant may perhaps sacrifice the word of 
a nation to save a nation's life, or to save its people 
great hurt — militarily and institutionally. 

Washington made one more effort early in Sep- 
tember, 1794, to get Jefferson to resume his place in 
the Cabinet. This was after the latter had been for 



INFLUENCE AS A DIPLOMAT 131 

some time in retirement at Monticello. He did this 
through Randolph, temporarily Secretary of State. 
Jefferson's reply to Randolph is worth reading. 

After retirement Jefferson, in a letter to Edward 
Rutledge, on November 30th, lays down, in connection 
with the Jay Treaty, a diplomatic principle that may 
be fairly considered as having gone permanently into 
the working of our institutions; a principle that where 
a treaty is made, and contains in it some promise or 
undertaking (like the payment of money, for ex- 
ample), jurisdiction over which is vested in Congress, 
Congress being a free and independent and coordinate 
branch, it can, within its sound discretion, comply 
with, or refuse to comply with, the provisions of the 
treaty by making, or refusing to make, the appropri- 
ation. This depends, too, upon the principle that 
foreign nations are affected with the knowledge of the 
nature of our Government. Jefferson expresses it in 
these words: ''Both negotiators must have understood 
that, as there were articles in it, which could not be 
carried into execution without the aid of the Legis- 
latures on both sides, therefore, it must be referred to 
them," and that, ''these Legislatures being free agents 
would not give it their support, if they disapproved of 
it." Subsequently, in the treaty acquiring Louisiana, 
he as President obeyed strictly the precept here laid 
down for others. He submitted the Louisiana Treaty 
to both Houses, "because," he said, "both have 
important functions to exercise respecting it." 

So much for the Jeffersonian view of the rights of 
the House of Representatives concerning treaties. 

Now for the Jeffersonian view of the President's 
rights respecting treaties: — 



132 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

On the 19th of February, 1807, President Jefferson 
announced to Congress that a treaty of peace had been 
agreed on with England. Soon after that the treaty 
which had been negotiated by Monroe came over. He 
found to his surprise that it did not touch upon the 
question of impressment of our sailors; that Great 
Britain did not disclaim this alleged right. He, there- 
fore, took the responsibility of not sending the treaty 
to the Senate. He was much, even bitterly criticised 
for this at the time. He acted within his right ; because, 
if he were not going to sign the treaty and had made up 
his mind that he would not, it was "love's labor lost" 
for the Senate to discuss it. The precedent set by him 
here has been acknowledged ever since, and has become 
engrafted upon our working institutions. It will be 
remembered that the Jay Treaty, under General 
Washington's administration, was also silent on this 
head of impressment, and yet Washington signed it. 
Jefferson had criticised him for it. His own conduct 
in and out of office was therefore consistent. 

Jefferson took the position that signing a treaty 
that was silent upon the subject was an acquiescence 
in, and therefore a quasi-recognition of, the British 
claim to the right of impressment, and that it was 
better, to use his characteristic language, "to let the 
negotiation take a friendly nap, and endeavor in the 
meantime to practice on such of its principles, as are 
mutually acceptable," 

Jefferson's reason for rejecting (by not submitting 
to the Senate for their action), this treaty effected by 
Monroe with Great Britain on December 31, 1806, is 



INFLUENCE AS A DIPLOMAT 133 

expressed more happily by Henry Adams than I could 
express it myself. I therefore quote from him: — 

"That a people like an individual, should for a time choose 
to accept a wrong, like impressment or robbery, without forcible 
resistance, implied no necessary discredit. Every nation at one 
time or another had submitted to treatment it disliked and to 
theories of international law which it rejected. The United States 
might go on indefinitely protesting against belligerent aggressions, 
while submitting to them, and no permanent evil need result. 
Yet a treaty was a compromise which made precedent; it recorded 
rules of law which could not be again discarded; and, above all, 
it abandoned protest against wrong. This was doubtless the 
reason why Jefferson wished for no treaties in the actual state of 
the world; he was not ready to enforce his rights, and he was not 
wiUing to compromise them." 

In April, 1794, in this same letter to Madison, to 
which I have once referred, appears the first inkling of 
the central idea of the Monroe Doctrine. He expresses 
the view that ''we ought at the proper time to declare 
to both France and to England, that the French West 
India Islands were to rest with France, and that we 
should make a common cause with her for that object." 
This seems to preclude the idea of France's voluntarily 
transferring, as well as of England's forcibly acquiring 
them, and this is virtually our present attitude towards 
the West India Islands: ''those who have, can keep; 
those who have not may not acquire," whether by war 
or purchase. 

On October 29, 1808, Jefferson wrote a letter to the 
Governor of Louisiana, in which is to be found a plain 
expression of the principle of the Monroe Doctrine, 
and, as far as I know, the last sentence in the quotation 
which I am about to make, is the first absolutely dis- 
tinct expression of it ever made by anybody : — 



134 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

"The patriots of Spain have no warmer friends than the adminis- 
tration of the United States, but it is our duty to say nothing and 
to do nothing for or against either. If they succeed, we shall be 
well satisfied to see Cuba and Mexico remain in their present de- 
pendence; but very unwilling to see them in that of either France 
or England, politically or commercially. We consider their interests 
and ours as the same, and that the object of both must be to exclude all 
European injiu^nce from this hemisphere." 

In a letter to Short, dated August 4, 1820, is another 
anticipation of the Monroe Doctrine : — 

"From many conversations with him" (Mr. Correa, appointed 
Minister to Brazil by the Government of Portugal), " I hope he sees, 
and will promote in his new situation, the advantages of a cordial 
fraternization among all the American nations, and the importance 
of their coalescing in an American system or policy, totally independ- 
ent of and unconnected with that of Europe. The day is not distant, 
when we may formally require a meridian of partition through the 
ocean which separates the two hemispheres, on the hither side of 
which no European gun shall ever be heard, nor an American on 
the other; and when, during the rage of the eternal wars of Europe, 
the Hon and the lamb, within our regions, shall lie down together in 
peace." 

In another letter to Short, dated August 20, 1820, he 
speaks of the "essential policy of interdicting in the 
seas and territories of both Americas the ferocious and 
sanguinary contests of Europe." This is very much 
like the language he wrote to Monroe in 1823, to wit: 
"Our first and fundamental maxims should be never to 
entangle ourselves in the broils of Europe; our second, 
never to suffer Europe to interfere in Cis-Atlantic 
affairs." 

In the Fortnightly Review, No. 5, Vol. 70, pages 357 
to 368, may be found an interesting and authoritative 
article by Theodore A. Cook on "The Original Intention 



INFLUENCE AS A DIPLOMAT 135 

of the Monroe Doctrine," as evinced by the correspond- 
ence of Monroe with Jefferson and Madison. Mr. Cook 
shows clearly that it was Jefferson's position, clear and 
decisive, rather than the more cautious one of Madison, 
or that of John Quincy Adams, that was taken by the 
President. 

By the time then that, under Monroe's admin- 
istration, it had become necessary for us to decide on 
our attitude, if the Holy Alliance should undertake to 
interfere in Spain's behalf against her South American 
colonies, which had declared and partially effected their 
independence, Jefferson was prepared in set opinion for 
the event. Monroe, who generally met Jefferson every 
Spring and consulted with him verbally, but had not 
been able to do so this year, wrote him two letters upon 
this subject. Jefferson's replies are memorable, since 
his suggestions make the very soul of the subsequent 
declaration, which came to be known as ''the Monroe 
Doctrine," and for which Monroe deserved the credit 
because his was the responsibility. Jefferson goes 
somewhat further than the President and his Cabinet 
thought prudent to follow. 

Meantime Canning made his proposition, which was, 
in substance, that America should declare that she 
would regard the intervention of the powers consti- 
tuting the Holy Alliance, as an unfriendly act, and 
intimated that Great Britain would stand with us 
behind the announcement. The President thereupon 
had written to Mr. Jefferson his second letter and, on 
October 24th, Jefferson wrote him a reply, in which^the 
Monroe Doctrine stands full born: — 



136 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

''Dear Sir: 

"The question presented by the letters you have sent me is 
the most momentous which has ever been offered to my contempla- 
tion since that of Independence. That made us a nation, this sets 
our compass and points the course which we are to steer through the 
ocean of time opening upon us. And never could we embark on it 
under circumstances more auspicious. Our first and fundamental 
maxim should be, never to entangle ourselves in the broils of Europe. 
Our second — never to suffer Europe to intermeddle with cis- Atlantic 
affairs. America, North and South, has a set of interests distinct 
from those of Europe, and peculiarly her own. She should there- 
fore have a system of her own, separate and apart from that of Europe. 
While the last is laboring to become the domicile of despotism, 
our endeavor should surely be, to make our hemisphere that of freedom. 
One nation, most of all, could disturb us in this pursuit; she now 
offers to lead, aid and accompany us in it. . . . Not that I would 
purchase even her amity at the price of taking part in her wars. 
But the war in which the present proposition might engage us, 
should that be its consequence, is not her war, but ours. Its object 
is to introduce and establish the American system, of keeping out of 
our land all foreign powers, of never permitting those of Europe to 
intermeddle with the affairs of our nations. It is to maintain our 
own principle, not to depart from it. . . . But I am clearly of Mr. 
Canning's opinion, that it will prevent instead of provoking war. 
With Great Britain withdrawn from their scale and shifted into 
that of our two continents, all Europe combined would not under- 
take such a war. For how would they propose to get at either enemy 
without superior fleets? ... I could honestly, therefore, join in 
the declaration proposed, that we aim not at the acquisition of any 
of these possessions; that we will not stand in the way of any amic- 
able arrangement between them and the mother country; but that 
we will oppose, with all our means, the forcible interposition of any 
other power, as auxiliary, stipendiary, or under any other form or 
pretext, and most especially their transfer to any other power by con- 
quest, cession, or acquisition in any other way. 

Note especially the last paragraph. It is broader, 
more far-reaching and clearer than the doctrine as 



INFLUENCE AS A DIPLOMAT 137 

announced officially by Monroe, though Jefferson's 
suggestion contains every word of the Monroe decla- 
ration and even all that we have since changed it to 
mean. 

Jefferson set the precedent while Secretary of State 
for the forms now obtaining in the Department. They 
are of the utmost simplicity and thoroughly democratic. 
A Secretary of State is not properly addressed even as 
an, '' Honorable," as are Senators and Representatives 
and other Department officials. He is "Mr. John 
Smith, Secretary of State," or ''John Smith, Esquire, 
Secretary of State." We have in our State Depart- 
ment no bureau of ceremonials and etiquette and 
precedents. Such bureaus exist in other countries, 
even in the Republic of France, as well as in the Mon- 
archy of Great Britain. In France there is a man 
whose special business it is to introduce Ambassadors, 
and act as master of ceremonies at the Elysee. A good 
many snobs regret our simplicity; some of them engaged 
in the service of the State Department at Washington, 
and some elsewhere writing or talking. It has also 
been regretted that we have not imitated the British 
in some other respects. The British Foreign Office, 
for example, requires its clerks to know German and 
French, and the degree of knowledge of French required 
is very great. This cuts the British Foreign Office off 
from very much talent. Some of the best clerks in 
our State Department, if such a rule existed there, 
would have to go. Of course, a knowledge of foreign 
languages is needed in the translating department, but 
there is no sense in requiring that all clerks should be 
acquainted with these two, or any foreign languages. 



138 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

There exists a very general impression that other 
countries have the advantage of us in diplomatic 
affairs, because they have greater secrecy. It is a 
mistake. There is no country anywhere, where the 
pubHc knows less of the negotiations going on in the 
Department of Foreign Affairs, until they are ready to 
be announced or communicated to the Senate. First 
as Secretary and later as President, Jefferson insisted 
on and practiced this secrecy in preliminary negoti- 
ations. 

Our Minister of Foreign Affairs — which is what our 
Secretary of State's title really ought to be — has one 
embarrassment that his colleagues in other countries 
do not have. The Senate has always asserted the 
right to amend a treaty, as well as to ratify or reject it. 
At first this caused a good deal of friction. Canning, 
when Prime Minister, read us a regular lecture upon the 
subject, as if we had been school children and he school- 
master. The custom grows out of that clause of the 
Constitution which says that the President, "with 
the advice and consent of the Senate," shall conclude 
treaties. The Senate has construed the authority to 
"advise" to be an authority to amend. It ''advises 
the ratification" "with the following amendments" etc. 
Jefferson stoutly maintained the right of the Senate. 

Mr. Jefferson followed the British example of using 
English, as the official language of diplomacy in 
Washington, and by our Ministers and Ambassadors 
abroad. Neither our Government, nor that of Great 
Britain, has ever conceded the point, that "French is 
the language of diplomacy." 

He early adopted the rule, which existed in some 



INFLUENCE AS A DIPLOMAT 139 

other countries, of "first come, first served," when 
Ambassadors and Ministers came to confer with the 
Secretary of State. In Jefferson's day, however, we 
neither sent nor received Ambassadors. ''Minister 
Plenipotentiary" or "Envoy Extraordinary" were the 
highest titles of our Diplomatic Corps. Here, as 
always elsewhere, he displayed genuine democratic 
simplicity — Jeffersonian simplicity — no mystery — 
no airs — no set forms. Common sense and kindly 
feeling and courteous treatment, constituted an all- 
suflficient etiquette for foreign and official, as for do- 
mestic and private affairs. 

The letters exchanged between Jefferson, as Secretary 
of State, and Hammond, as British Minister, are well 
worth attention, especially Jefferson's dispatch to Ham- 
mond dated May 29, 1792. In it are many things of 
permanent value, besides, it is one of the most care- 
fully and convincingly written even of Jefferson's great 
papers touching international law and international 
relations. 

During these negotiations at one time Hammond 
suggested the idea of both parties giving up all fortified 
posts along the Canadian border, having no "posts," 
except for trading. Jefferson replied that this "ac- 
corded well with two favorites of mine, of leaving com- 
merce free, and of never keeping an unnecessary 
soldier." Since then, this policy of disarmament on 
the border and on the Great Lakes became a settled 
and mutual policy of both nations, and I doubt not 
that it accounts for the fact that we are soon to cele- 
brate the centennial anniversary of uninterrupted peace 
with Great Britain. 



140 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

I have elsewhere referred to the repeal of the Feder- 
alist naturalization law and the reenactment of the 
more hberal one. The effect of this treatment of 
foreigners and this encouragement of unassisted immi- 
gration, upon our growth and upon the amicableness 
of our relations with other nations and upon the 
material welfare of mankind, here and abroad, cannot 
be overestimated. Mr. Jefferson elsewhere expressed 
his opposition to assisted immigration. The restric- 
tions which we have since put upon immigration would 
undoubtedly have been favored by him, as they only 
relate to the health and character and intelligence of 
the immigrants, or else to the preservation of the Cau- 
casian race from the infiltration of Oriental bloods — 
to the maintenance of a homogeneous population. 

We ought to have in our midst no alien races, un- 
assimilable in lawful wedlock. Our prohibition of 
Mongolian immigration ought to be extended to 
Africans. I attempted to secure this in the last 
Congress, but failed. PoHtical reasons — or Repub- 
lican party reasons — the fear of the defection of the 
negro vote in the doubtful Northern States — account 
for the failure. 

Of course, the grandest diplomatic achievement of 
Mr. Jefferson, and that affecting most permanently all 
our institutions and our destiny, was the acquisition of 
Louisiana, and the foundations laid by him, and later 
built upon successfully to acquire Florida. For the 
latter I shall have no space at all. The former I hope 
to treat in another lecture. 



CHAPTER V 

JEFFERSON THE DEMOCRATIZER OF FEDERAL 
INSTITUTIONS 

STEMMING THE COUNTER-REVOLTJTION 

Jefferson, once back in America, as soon as he could 
get his bearings, took up in earnest the greatest and most 
successful work of his life — that of turning back the 
tide of counter-revolution. His stay in France had 
had but one political effect — to teach him by contrast 
the value of democratic forms and a democratic spirit. 
His every act and word after his return was a call: 
''Back to the principles of the American Revolution." 
Of all the services he rendered his countrymen, this is 
that for which they owe him most. 

But he began his work before his return, as his letters 
show. Already while in France he feared the reaction 
which had set in at home, as a result of Shay's Rebellion 
in Massachusetts, emphasized later by the natural 
effect of the excesses in France. 

It is notable that Shay's Rebellion, as it was called, 
which was put down by the people themselves, did not 
result in the death by the act of the civil government of 
a single man engaged in it — but it did discourage — 
in fact, carried dismay — to the hearts of many men, 
who had theretofore been stalwart supporters of popular 
government. 

Jefferson's insistence upon simplifying and democ- 

141 



142 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

ratizing the federal government at home, in the very- 
teeth of the excesses soon occurring in Paris and of the 
dangerous reaction in England and America — in 
Austria — everywhere — showed him to be not a 
visionary, but a practical man. It was the other 
people, who were visionaries, who did not know how to 
adapt the blanket to the weather, who wanted to limit 
our liberty, because the French had shown themselves 
not yet fit for it. 

Parton rather humorously describes, in an article 
entitled, ''Meeting of Jefferson and Hamilton," in the 
Atlantic Monthly of December, 1872, the situation in 
which Jefferson found himself, when he reached New 
York: — 

"The faithful believer was now at Mecca. But he did not find 
the magnates of the temple so enthusiastic for the Prophet and the 
Koran, as more distant worshippers. He was in the situation of 
a person who had left his native village full of ardent Methodists, 
himself the most ardent of them all, and returning after five years' 
absence, during which he had become even more glowing, finds 
half the people turned Rituahsts." 

Parton says, that it was then in New York " the mode 
to extol strong and imposing governments, to regret 
that people were so attached to the town meeting 
methods of conducting public business, and to antici- 
pate the day when America would be ripe for a govern- 
ment 'not essentially different from that which they had 
recently discarded.' " 

Concerning the celebrated passage in Jefferson's 
Ana, in which he describes the character of the "dinner 
table conversations," where "politics were the chief 
topic, and a preference of kingly over repubUcan 



DEMOCRATIZER OF FEDERAL INSTITUTIONS 143 

government was evidently the favorite sentiment." 
Parton says: ''No man can glance over the memorials 
of the time without meeting on every side confirmation 
of this passage." 

The proof of this assertion I am about to unfold. 
Powell calls all this "A Suppressed Chapter of Amer- 
ican History," and says there was "a long contest 
between the principles of monarchy and democracy." 
It is true, and our difficulty in realizing it now is 
found only in the fact that we have passed so far away 
from it. To Jefferson chiefly we owe the fact of having 
passed so far away from it. 

It was in the spring of 1790, soon after Jefferson 
arrived, that there appeared in the Gazette a series of 
articles, entitled, ''The Discourses of Davila." The 
newsboys of the day poked it and more like it under 
Jefferson's nose, and John Adams, the Vice-President 
of the United States, had written it. One of the 
sentences in the "Discourses of Davila" was this: — 

" Nations, perceiving that the still small voice of merit was 
drowned in the insolent roar of the dupes of impudence and 
knavery in national elections, without a possibiUty of remedy, have 
sought for something more permanent than the popular voice to 
designate honor." 

Another sentence is additionally to be noted : — 

" All projects of government, formed upon a supposition of con- 
tinual vigilance, sagacity, virtue, and firmness of the people, when 
possessed of the exercise of supreme power, are cheats and 
delusions." 

Such was the strength of this great reaction, that the 
old time radical — Adams, who had written these 
sentences, had become "not averse to a life tenure for 



144 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

the President," or even an hereditary tenure, holding 
that the terms of office might be extended, ''until they 
reached the life limit," and that if this was not found 
sufficient, they should be made hereditary. (Mer- 
riam's "Pohtical Theories," page 134.) 
To quote Adams further: — 

"The proposition that the people are the best keepers of their 
own hberties, is not true; they are the worst conceivable; they are 
no keepers at all; they can neither judge, act, think, nor will, as a 
political body." 

This is the man, who, in Revolutionary times, had 
said: "Where annual elections end, tyranny begins." 

The point I am making is that words like these were 
not only being spoken at "dinner tables," as Jefferson 
said they were, but were being deliberately written in 
books, and not by irresponsible people, but by great 
statesmen, some of whom had been, as Jefferson later 
said, "Solomons in council and Samsons in the field," 
during the Revolution, but who had since "had their 
heads shorn." 

I believe I love the man John Adams too much to 
quote further from him, but you can find more hke it 
in his book, "The Defense of American Constitutions," 
and in his articles, "Discourses on Davila." 

I have selected Mr. Adams as the chief illustration of 
how far the "Solomons in council," as well as the 
"Samsons in fight" — like Hamilton and Knox — 
had retreated from their old positions, because in my 
opinion, he was the most disinterested, the most 
patriotic, the sincerest, and the least designing of all 
the great reactionaries. Much more extreme utter- 
ances are to be found in the letters and pubhc addresses 



DEMOCRATIZER OF FEDERAL INSTITUTIONS 145 

of other reactionary leaders, and in the contemporary 
newspapers. 

For the first eight years after, as well as for some time 
before the foundation of the new government, these 
reactionary views were popular even among the people, 
and for ten or eleven years, were predominant with most 
of the educated, and nearly all the wealthy classes — 
especially merchants, bankers, importers, fundholders, 
and most of the clergy, in states where the church was 
not yet disestablished and separated from the state. 

It is paltry to say that Mr. Jefferson was "over 
credulous," ''frightened by shadows," or ''suspicious," 
when American public sentiment had reached the 
point, where a man publishing Adams' views could be 
elected Vice-President twice and even President once, 
and where men professing, without concealment, 
Hamilton's and Knox's views, were given cabinet 
positions, and where later, Alien and Sedition laws 
could be passed by both Houses and signed by the 
President, and where the hold of "the system" upon 
the country grew so strong that it could be shaken 
by nothing less than the veiled threats of the Virginia 
and Kentucky Resolutions. This reaction against 
the principles of the Revolution was especially notable 
in New York, the first temporary seat of government. 

Lorenzo Sabine, in his "American LoyaHsts," asserts 
that " beyond all doubt " the royalist party had con- 
tained a majority of the people of the entire State of 
New York. Many of those, who had been loyalists 
during the Revolution, were, at the time of Jefferson's 
return, amongst the ultra-fashionable society of New 
York city. The women of this same fashionable society 
11 



146 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

had, during our war, welcomed and fraternized with the 
British officers. Moreover, as Randall says, ''Every 
well informed man understands, that the American 
Revolution began as a war against the aggressions, and 
not against the form, of the British Government." 
Thus many honest Revolutionary Whigs remained at 
heart ''monocrats" — a word invented by Jefferson to 
describe a class. 

To some extent everywhere the reaction had set in 
and was flowing along with a full current. Even at 
the meeting at Annapolis, although it was conceded 
that the sentiment of ''the populace" in America was 
so strongly in favor of republican institutions, that a 
monarchical model could hardly be expected to be set 
up successfully, there was no lack of talk in favor of it. 

Indeed, even before the Revolution was well over, 
American officers had entertained the idea of making 
Washington king. 

John Jay, in a letter of January 7, 1787, directed to 
General Washington himself, propounds the inquiry: 
"Shall we have a king?" And answers it with a quali- 
fied negative: "Not in my opinion, while other expedients 
remain untried ^ 

General Washington wrote to Mr. Madison on 
March 31st, recognizing the situation, in these sig- 
nificant words: "I am fully of the opinion that those, 
who lean to a monarchical government, have either not 
consulted the public mind, or that they live in a 
region" (meaning New England) "which (the leveling 
principles in which they were bred being entirely 
eradicated) is much more productive of monarchical 
ideas, than is the case in the Southern States." He 



DEMOCRATIZER OF FEDERAL INSTITUTIONS 147 

adds: "I am also clear that, even admitting the utility y 
nay, necessity of the form, the period is not arrived for 
adopting the change, without shaking the peace of this 
country to its foundation." Even this is, you will note, 
a barely qualified negative. Thus it was not unpatri- 
otic, even in Washington's opinion, to hold monarchy 
in ultimate contemplation — en arriere-pensee. 

Madison's report, in the third person, of Hamilton's 
speech to the Constitutional Convention, exhibits an 
advocacy of as near an approach as possible to mon- 
archy on the English model. Read it. This much of it, 
I excerpt: ''He hoped gentlemen of different opinions 
would bear with him in this," and then this language, 
significant of my contention, follows: ''and he begged 
them to recollect the change of opinion on this subject which 
had taken place, and was still going on." Madison con- 
tinues the report of Hamilton's speech: — 

"The members most tenacious of republicanism, he observed, 
were as loud as any in declaiming against the vices of democracy. 
This progress of the public mind led him to anticipate the time when 
others, as well as himself, would join in the praise bestowed by 
Mr. Necker on the British Constitution, namely, that it is the only 
government in the world which 'imited pubUc strength with in- 
dividual security.' " 

But this was not all. In this speech he paid a high 
tribute to the British House of Lords as "A most noble 
institution." 

But this wasn't enough; he had proceeded: "The 
hereditary interest of the King" (in England) "was so 
interwoven with that of the nation, and his personal 
emolument so great, that he was placed above the 



148 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

danger of being corrupted from abroad, and was at 
the same time both sufficiently independent and 
sufficiently controlled to answer the purpose of the 
institution at home." 

Madison, whose truthfulness, as far as I know, has 
never been elsewhere denied, says that his report of 
this speech, "as above taken down and written out, 
was submitted to Hamilton, who approved of its cor- 
rectness, with one or two verbal changes, which were 
made." 

Mr. John C. Hamilton, son and biographer of Hamil- 
ton, as a part of the general attempt to suppress this 
chapter of American history, does question his veracity 
in a roundabout way by caUing his report "a very 
imperfect report of the speech," etc. This statement 
he attempts to support by comparing the speech with a 
brief of it, or a brief of some undated speech, found 
among Hamilton's manuscripts in his handwriting. 

Here are a few lines from the brief itself, if properly it 
can be called a brief. It is rather "head-notes" of this 
or some other old speech, just like head-notes that any 
one would make upon the back of an envelope, when 
he had a few minutes and wanted to outline the scope 
of an extemporaneous argument. See how these head- 
notes in Hamilton's handwriting demonstrate the 
wonderful accuracy of Madison's long-hand report. 
They read : — 

"Here I shall give my sentiments of the best form of government 
— not as a tWng attainable by us, but as a model, which we ought 
to approach as near as possible." 

"British Constitution best form." 



DEMOCRATIZER OF FEDERAL INSTITUTIONS 149 

Then he puts down the names of ''Aristotle, Cicero, 
Montesquieu, and Necker," evidently as supporting 
authorities, from whom he proposes to fortify his argu- 
ment. Then these head-lines : — 

"Society naturally divides itself into two political divisions — 
the few and the many, who have distinct interests. . . . 

"If government is in the hands of the few, they will tyrannize 
over the many. . . . 

"If (in) the hands of the many, they will tyrannize over the 
few. It ought to be in the hands of both; and they should be sepa- 
rated. . . . (That is, two Houses) 

"This separation must be permanent. . . . 

"Representation alone will not do. ..." 

The next — and this is the milk in the cocoanut: — 
"And if separated, they will need a mutual check." 
And clinching the nail : — 
" This check is a monarch." 

From the next we learn that this monarch ought to 
be "hereditary," From the next that the advantage 
of a monarch is that he is ''above corruption," and is 
"not subject to foreign influence." 

I do not want to quote all the head-notes of the 
speech, but letting escape a few that are non-essential 
to the argument right here, there follow these two: — 

"It is said a republican government does not admit a vigorous 
execution. 

"It is therefore bad; for the goodness of a government consists 
« in vigorous execution."^ 

Hamilton here made a mistake, which so many people 
— Pope, among others — make, of regarding ejfficiency 

»See "Life of Hamilton," by John C. Hamilton, Vol. 3, page 280 
et seq. 



150 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

of administration as the main end of government. 
It is a thing that ought to be had, as far as can be, 
consonantly with hberty and local self-government, 
but it is not the only, nor is it the chief, nor anywhere 
near the chief, end of government. That government 
is "noV ''best, which is best administered." 

Thus Madison's report of the speech made from these 
notes, while it was not verbatim — Madison not being 
a shorthand reporter — was evidently faithful, and was 
a report which Hamilton could not have quarreled 
with. An examination of Yates's Minutes in Elliott's 
Debates, shows that his report of Hamilton's remarks 
agrees substantially with Madison's and with the notes. 

It will be noted that these head-notes are replete with 
Hamilton's distrust of anything like democratic insti- 
tutions, and endorse a House of Lords and a King as 
things to be approximated, and are pregnant with the 
thought that all government must be maintained by 
tying to its pm-poses the self-interest of those, who con- 
stitute its governors. They must be so ''highly 
rewarded," as to be "above corruption"; the assump- 
tion being, that, if not, they necessarily will be cor- 
rupted. 

Now, of course, Hamilton's plan did not prevail in 
the Constitutional Convention. Every material propo- 
sition made by him was voted down. But I am demon- 
strating his reactionary and counter-revolutionary 
desire, which is always one step from a design. 

In Hamilton's plan, offered to the Constitutional 
Convention, the Senators were not to be elected by the 
people at all, but by electors, and these electors each 
had to have at least a life estate in land, or a leasehold 



DEMOCRATIZER OF FEDERAL INSTITUTIONS 151 

estate for fourteen years. Senators were to hold their 
seats for Ufe, unless impeached, and it was the Senate, 
which was to declare war, as well as ratify treaties, and 
control appointments. If any man of the utmost 
audacity could have had audacity enough to propose 
to the plain American people a plan more essentially 
aristocratic than that, it would be curious to hear it. 
His President was to be elected only by such part of 
the people as had an inherited estate in fee simple, or 
for a tenure of three lives, or a clear personal estate of a 
thousand Spanish dollars, and even these were not to 
vote for the President, but for electors, and the electors, 
by sealed ballot, for the President. Then the electors 
of each State were to select second electors, and these 
second electors were to carry the ballots to the Chief 
Justice, and, in his presence, open them. 

The only advantage about the scheme was that this 
complicated process, with which the people had so little 
to do, was not to trouble them very often, for Hamil- 
ton's President was to hold his office for life, unless 
impeached. Besides having the powers which our 
President has as chief executive of the nation, Hamil- 
ton's President was to appoint all the governors of the 
States. His Federal Government was to designate all 
the State judges, or rather Federal judges in the States, 
vested with substantially the entire judicial power of 
the country. Then, in order that his House of Re- 
presentatives might not be troublesome, it was left to 
the President to convene and prorogue Congress! 

Jefferson has been accused of being unjust to Hamil- 
ton because he said the latter ''favored a king, lords 
and commons." If this plan was not substantially 



152 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

and really one for not only a king, but a Polish or 
elective life king at that, and a substantial house of 
lords, except that the king and lords were not called by 
those names, and were not as yet hereditary — only 
holding at first for life — it would be hard to find 
anything that is. Moreover, there was virtually no 
''commons" at all. 

Notwithstanding the fact of the defeat of his plan of 
government, he still advocated the adoption of the 
Constitution, as submitted, because, although it was 
not in accord with his design, it was the best attain- 
able for him — much nearer his model than the old 
confederacy — and, although "an experiment," was 
worthy of a trial. Moreover, it was elastic, and could 
be stretched in the working. Nor did his view, bent, 
or design cease with the adoption of the Constitution. 
If so, when? 

His friend, Morris, wrote to Robert Walsh in a letter 
dated as late as February 5, 1811: — 

"General Hamilton had little share in forming the Constitution. 
He disliked it, believing all republican government to be radically 
defective. He heartily assented, nevertheless, to the Constitution, 
because he considered it a band, which might hold us together for 
some time, and he knew that national sentiment is the condition of 
national existence." 

Wise and far-seeing sentence this. Then Morris 
adds, speaking still of Hamilton: "He trusted, moreover, 
that in the changes and chances of time, we should be 
involved in some war, which might strengthen our union 
and nerve the executive." 

From his standpoint, of course, some "temporary 
band," which was "to hold us together," had to be 



DEMOCRATIZER OF FEDERAL INSTITUTIONS 153 

adopted. No union could become consolidated, nor 
be "strengthened" and rendered more ''stable," 
either in peace, or ''if involved in some war," unless it 
first existed. 

In a letter to Gouverneur Morris, dated February 2, 
1802, Hamilton says : — 

"Mine is an odd destiny. Perhaps no man in the United States 
has sacrificed or done more for the present Constitution than myself; 
and, contrary to all my anticipations of its fate, as you know, from the 
very beginning, I am still laboring to prop the frail and worthless 
fabric. . . . Every day proves to me more and more, that this 
American world was not made for me. . . . You, friend Morris, 
are by birth a native of this country, but by genius an exotic. 
You mistake, if you fancy that you are more of a favorite than 
myself, or that you are in any sort upon a theatre suited to you.'* 

"Your people, sir," exclaimed Alexander Hamilton at 
a public dinner in New York, smiting the table with his 
fist, "Your people, sir, is a great beast!" He was not 
the only one of the reactionaries, who held and con- 
tinued to hold that opinion. 

In the letter from Morris to Walsh, dated February 5, 
1811, already partially quoted, Morris says: "One 
marked trait of the General's character was his perti- 
nacious adherence to opinions he had once formed. 
. . . He never failed on every occasion to advocate 
the excellence of, and to avow his attachment to, 
monarchical government." Morris adds: "By this 
course he not only cut himself off from all chance of 
rising into office, but singularly promoted the views of 
his opponents," etc. (He means, of course, elective 
office.) 

"Singularly promoted the views of his opponents." 



154 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

How? By establishing the truth, which they asserted 
most openly always, and which many FederaUsts 
denied then, and all later, that there was ''a mon- 
archical party;" that is, a party anxious to instill a 
monarchical spirit into the American frame of govern- 
ment, even though (which would itself become doubt- 
ful after a while) its outward republican frame were 
to be maintained. And this same Morris, in a letter 
to Aaron Ogden, dated December 28, 1804, says : — 

"Our poor friend Hamilton bestrode his hobby to the great 
annoyance of his friends, and not without injury to himself. More 
a theoretic than a practical man, he was not sufficiently convinced 
that a system may be good in itself, and bad in relation to particular 
circumstances. He well knew that his favorite form was inad- 
missible, unless as the result of civil war; and I suppose that his 
belief in that, which he called an approaching crisis, arose from a 
conviction, that the kind of government most suitable, in his opinion, 
to this extensive country, could be established in no other way." 

Then Morris, a reactionary too, and partially syiji- 
pathetic with these views, adds: — 

" Experience alone can inchne the people to such an institution. 
That a man should be born a legislator is now, among unfledged witlings, 
the frequent subject of ridicule. But experience . . . will tell us 
that men destined from the cradle to act an important part will not, 
in general, be so unfit as those who are objects of popular choice." 

"But," it is said, "these were theoretical views." 
Yes, after the holders of them were whipped out of the 
political arena. Where a man's real faith is, there are 
his works. What the heart wills, the head will find it 
hard not to have the hand try to do. A bad theory and 
an imitative practice dwell in a double room, with sliding 
doors between. 



DEMOCRATIZER OF FEDERAL INSTITUTIONS 155 

Men entertaining such 'theoretical" opinions were 
not at all apt to keep a republican spirit in republican 
institutions, much less to go further and put a demo- 
cratic soul-poHtic into a republican body-politic, and 
Jefferson knew it. He wanted not only to republi- 
canize, but to democratize, and he did it, and his 
election in 1800 deserves to be mentioned in history 
as our second revolution. 

Jefferson used to say, that if "the hoards of letters 
now in private keeping" should ever be published, they 
would justify his suspicions and prove that his con- 
tentions were not ill founded. I think the student will 
conclude from what have already been published, that 
he was not lacking in foresight. How many have been 
suppressed? God alone knows! Hamilton's own son, 
in his "Life of Hamilton," seemingly without appreci- 
ating it fully, published many of the letters which 
establish it. Fisher Ames has left letters behind that 
speak loudly; so has Plumer, so has George Cabot; 
also Christopher Gore, and Timothy Pickering; and 
Thomas and Theodore Dwight, not only letters, but 
public documents. Fisher Ames says, that the Ameri- 
can people trying to govern themselves "without 
separate orders" reminded him of "free negroes!" 
See this delightful specimen of the antique in Ames's 
"Works," Volume 1, page 393, and another letter on the 
next page to Timothy Pickering, the last dated 
February 4, 1807. Then read the private letters of 
Theodore Sedgwick, sometime Federalist "Leader" on 
the floor of the House of Representatives, chosen to 
lead by his fellow reactionaries — especially a letter 
to Hamilton of January 27, 1803 — "Hamilton's 



156 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

Works/' vol. 6, page 552. Then, do not forget that 
pussy-footed old Counter-Revolutionist, Ohver Walcott. 

Much has been said about the conversation which 
Jefferson in his Ana recorded as having occurred 
between John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, from 
which Jefferson drew the inference that Hamilton was 
not only in favor of a monarchy, but of a "monarchy 
bottomed on corruption." I believe that the report of 
the conversation is almost literally accurate, although 
there is, of course, a distance, long or short, between a 
man's praising a thing and his wanting to put that thing 
into operation at a given time, or in a given place. 
The conversation was this: Mr. Adams said, speaking of 
the British Constitution: "Purge that Constitution of 
its corruption and it would be the most perfect consti- 
tution ever devised by the wit of man." Now a man, 
who will read Adams' work, "Davila," his "Defense 
of the American Constitution," and his letters, and will 
not arrive at the conclusion that at one time Mr. 
Adams not only entertained, but actually printed, 
just the view here attributed to him, is much lacking in 
impartiality or perspicacity, or intellectual integrity — 
one or all of the three. And Mr. Adams is not the only 
man, who entertained then, or entertains now, that 
opinion. Probably twenty per cent at least of my 
readers do. I entertained it once. In fact, I remember 
going further, and, enraptured with the glowing rhetoric 
of Edmund Burke, coming by an eloquent, if not a wise 
route, to the conclusion that even the rotten borough 
system in England was a blessing — a sort of fortress 
for conservatism. 

Now what is it that Jefferson reports Hamilton as 



DEMOCRATIZER OF FEDERAL INSTITUTIONS 157 

replying? ''Hamilton paused, and said: 'Purge it of 
its corruption and give to its popular branch equality 
of representation, and it would become an impracticable 
government.'" The word Jefferson used was "im- 
practicable." It was the giving to "its popular 
branch equality of representation," which was the thing 
that would make it "impracticable." Remember at 
the same time that as the British Government was then 
practically administered, it was the unequal repre- 
sentation illustrated by "rotten boroughs," like the 
"Chiltern Hundred," that furnished the means of 
"management" and control by the British executive. 
The "conservative classes" always — the ministry 
nearly always — controlled these boroughs. 

Then Hamilton continued in these words: "As it 
stands at present, with all of its supposed defects, it is 
the most perfect government which ever existed." 
Now Jefferson has been charged with "attributing evil 
motives" because he recorded this expression of 
Hamilton's, when, with the debated exception of our 
own government, everybody will assert that the 
English Government, "just as it stood" in Hamilton's 
day, with all its admitted corruption, was "the most 
perfect government" in its "practical" workings, 
' ' which had ever existed " up to that time. No man was 
guilty of a crime, or treason, or an "evil motive," be- 
cause he believed, what so many then believed, including 
Montesquieu and Necker. I am as certain that Hamil- 
ton said it, as I am that Edmund Burke, if seated at the 
same table, would have said the same thing, and I 
draw no inference of personal corruption in either case. 
Go back and study your Burke, and then study the 



158 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

literature of the opposition to the EngHsh reform bill. 
''Whatever is old in years, to man is Godlike." 

Hamilton, having in his mind that the House of 
Commons had to be ''managed," as the ministers of 
Great Britain called it, would have been wiser than 
he, with his distrust of this "great beast" — "the 
people" — with his lack of imagination and original 
constructiveness, could have been expected at that day 
to be, if he had not likewise thought, that our House of 
Representatives would have to be "managed" in order 
to keep our new govermnent from being "impractic- 
able." Now remember that, in this quotation, Jeffer- 
son does not accuse Hamilton of being personally 
corrupt, or of any other vice, or crime, or fault, save 
that of opinion. Jefferson wrote of him in these same 
memoirs; "Hamilton was indeed a singular character. 
Of acute understanding, disinterested, honest and honor- 
able in all private transactions, amiable in society, and 
duly valuing virtue in private life, yet so bewitched and 
perverted by the British example, as to be under 
thorough conviction, that corruption was essential to 
the government of a nation." Old Sir Robert Walpole, 
a thoroughly honest man personally, was under pre- 
cisely the same "thorough conviction," and Hamilton's 
whole policy convinces me that he was too, with this 
difference: that Hamilton would perhaps not have 
bought a man's vote outright, as Sir Robert made no 
bones of doing. But he counted it a public gain when, 
by giving a position in the Treasury to a man here, or 
interesting a man there, as a director or stockholder of 
the United States Bank, or as a holder of pubhc funds, 
he had secured in the representative assembly an 



DEMOCRATIZER OF FEDERAL INSTITUTIONS 159 

adherent of "government," as he called it. The chief 
aim of his pohcy was to marry interests to the government, 
and it was to be done by management and legislation. 
He deemed it necessary and wise ; Jefferson did not. The 
latter saw corruption in its effect, whatever its intent. 
Hamilton deemed Jefferson a hypocrite, when he 
professed that he wanted to "bottom government" on 
reason and the popular will alone. Indeed, half the 
politicians today, though they profess — as Hamilton 
did not — allegiance to Jefferson's principles, do not 
entertain them, and being conscious hypocrites them- 
selves, conclude that those, who do not only profess, 
but believe them, are in the same class with themselves. 
Hamilton became the idol of the monied class. It 
was no wonder that Fisher Ames, who understood him 
and his policy, wrote to him on July 31, 1791, a letter 
which can be found in Hamilton's "Works," Volume 5, 
page 473, containing these words : — 

"All the influence of the moneyed men ought to be wrapped up 
in the union and in one bank. . . . The success of the government 
of the United States, and especially measures proceeding from your 
department has astonished the multitude." 

Poor old multitude! As usual, all it got out of it 
was astonishment! Nearly, or quite, half of us have 
come by now to know, that the very A B C of pohtical 
reform must consist in the divorce of government from 
"big business" and of "big business" from "big 
politics," and, therefore, it looks corruptive, if not 
corrupt, to us, as it did to Jefferson, so far in advance of 
us, that a man should pursue a persistent plan of marry- 
ing them together. But it was different then. We are 
to remember that in Hamilton's and Jefferson's day 



160 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

even the proud Earl of Chatham — the elder Pitt — in 
his somewhat contemptuous way, to be sure, but none 
the less actually — cooperated with the Duke of 
Newcastle, in ''carrying on His Majesty's Govern- 
ment." Pitt, the Empire-builder, uttered day by day 
words of eloquent wisdom and initiated great measures 
of statesmanship. Newcastle, day by day, "managed" 
the House, in a notoriously corrupt way, to which Chat- 
ham could not have been bUnd. He despised the system 
and Newcastle both; but he accepted both as "some- 
thing that was and is and must be," in order that he 
and the soldiers and sailors of Great Britain might lift 
up her Empire, enlarge her trade, and even extend the 
empire of liberty for the human race. He had to have 
a fulcrum on which to rest his lever — a parhamentary 
majority. 

There is no doubt about the fact that General 
Washington beheved that the monarchical party had 
quit struggling, after the adoption of the new Consti- 
tution. There is equally no doubt that, as to a great 
many of them, he was, as Jefferson told him, mistaken. 

Designs, or desires, like these seem so absurd from 
our present viewpoint, that it is hard for anyone to put 
himself back in history to the place, where they were 
not only actual, but natural. 

The reader is better prepared now, I hope, to under- 
stand the situation of things in Washington's Cabinet, 
and to understand Jefferson's purpose, and how he 
came, little by little, to be the head of a great de- 
mocratizing party — "The Democratic-Republican" 
Party — not Republican alone. 

Hamilton intended that the "Treasury Measures" 



DEMOCRATIZER OF FEDERAL INSTITUTIONS 161 

should have another effect besides that of ''strength- 
ening the pubhc credit." They were to tie vast monied 
interests to ''government" (and remember that the 
word "Government" was then much used in the 
Enghsh sense — of administration) . In this connection, 
I recommend the following utterances from Senator 
Lodge's "History of the United States" in the "History 
of Nations" series, which occur in comment upon Hamil- 
ton's scheme for Federal assumption of the State debts: 
"This final proposition, not only was wise financially, 
as it was intended to be, but was also a powerful instru- 
ment of consolidating the government." Note that this is 
just what Jefferson said it was intended to be. 

Hamilton was watchful of the government itself, 
lest it be weak enough to chance being overthrown by 
the people, and was anxious to buttress it strongly — 
mvoking to its aid every "influence" and "interest" 
possible. From Jefferson's viewpoint, the things to 
be buttressed were the elemental and natural rights of 
the people as individuals and the great safeguarding 
right of local self-government — and the chief peril 
against which these were to be defended was the 
government itself. 

On page 353, from the same book, by Senator Lodge — 
a thorough Hamiltonian, by the way — occurs this 
language in connection with Hamilton's scheme for a 
national bank: "In this connection it ought to be 
repeated that aside from financial consideration, 
Hamilton had ulterior motives in wishing the national 
government to engage in the banking business and to 
assume the State debts. He saw clearly that both 
would strengthen the national government, by rallying 

12 



162 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

to its support the monied interests of the country," etc. 
If he had added right here, "and of getting members of 
Congress and Senators, who held or bought up pubUc 
securities, interested in governmental measures," he 
would have made a full statement of the case. 

No Federalist, or modern Republican, ever regarded 
such a motive as the one stated by Senator Lodge to 
be an evil. From their standpoint, it is a wise and 
statesmanlike motive. From Jefferson's viewpoint, it 
necessarily tended towards plutocracy, or corruption, 
or both. Nor did Jefferson think such measures 
necessary to ''strengthen the public credit." 

Even Foster, in his ''Century of American Diplo- 
macy," page 149, says: "In September, 1789, Mr. 
Jefferson reported from Paris to Secretary Jay that the 
credit of the United States at Amsterdam had become 
the first on that exchange; . . . that our bonds had 
risen to 99." Note that date and how soon after the 
establishment of our government. What did Hamil- 
ton's treasury schemes, yet unborn, have to do with 
that? As far as foreign and domestic evidences of the 
United States debt were concerned, domestic tran- 
quility, an established and stable government, with 
power to tax individuals, so as to have a treasury with 
money in it, the consequent ability to pay, and the 
immediate illustration of that ability, by promptly 
meeting interest and arrears, would have brought them 
to par anyhow. 

In one of his anonymous newspaper articles, Hamil- 
ton charged that Jefferson was "originally and con- 
tinuously an opponent of the adoption of the present 
Constitution of the United States." How absolutely 



DEMOCRATIZER OF FEDERAL INSTITUTIONS 163 

untrue this accusation is we shall now see — the inquiry 
being pertinent to the democratization of our Federal 
Institutions. Jefferson objected that the Constitution 
did not sufficiently guarantee the preservation of indi- 
vidual rights — "the inherent and inahenable rights 
of the people" — which had been protected in Great 
Britain by a Bill of Rights, and that a Bill of Rights 
ought to be embodied in our Constitution. This was 
done. Jefferson also desired to have engrafted upon 
the Constitution a provision declaring that the Federal 
Government had no powers except those granted it 
(either expressly or by necessary implication), and that 
all other powers were ''reserved." This was done. 
Now the chief business of a bill of rights is to protect 
the individual against unjust governmental action. 
The authors of the Federalist do not seem to have 
realized very intensely the importance of that, and 
yet, in so far as the judiciary has found in the Consti- 
tution a bulwark of protection for the people against 
the despotism of the Government, or of popular 
majorities, as in the case of the civil rights bill and some 
other Reconstruction legislation, and many other 
enactments violative of natural, or property, or labor 
rights, this bulwark has consisted mainly in the amend- 
ments to the instrument, secured by Jefferson and 
others of his school, and not in the original instrument, 
as presented for adoption in the first instance. 

In Number 84 of the Federalist, bills of right are 
referred to as ''aphorisms!" One may imagine how 
this sort of expression would grate on the feelings of a 
man like Jefferson, who had not been influenced by the 
American counter-revolution. In the same number of 



164 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

the Federalist, it is argued that under our government 
''the people surrender nothing; and as they retain every- 
thing, they have no need of particular reservations." 
The fact that we still hear so much about the ''inherent 
powers" of the federal government, even after the 
adoption of the amendment declaring that "powers not 
delegated are reserved to the States, or to the people," 
proves that the author of Number 84 of the Federalist 
was wrong and Jefferson right. 

In answer to much that I have said of the Hamil- 
tonian views and desires, or designs, his articles in the 
Federalist might be quoted, but in these articles, one 
finds not the political philosophy of Hamilton, but an 
advocate's plea for the adoption of the Constitution. 
That Hamilton gave it even this support is a tribute to 
his devotion to the central and primordial necessity of 
a union, and is a manifestation of intellectual ability 
seldom excelled. 

Still, the papers in the Federalist show that what he 
and Jay most dreaded were popular movements. They 
would have been surprised, if they could have known 
that a hundred and thirty years afterwards our Federal 
Government would be, in its actual working and legis- 
lative results, the least responsive of all governments 
over English-speaking peoples to the result of a 
popular election. They would have been still more 
surprised, if they could have known that the Enghsh 
Government and all the English colonies, at the end of 
that time, would furnish systems, where the executive 
itself would be merely the mouthpiece of a committee 
of a majority of the legislative representatives of the 
people; that within that time the House of Commons in 



DEMOCRATIZER OF FEDERAL INSTITUTIONS 165 

England itself, and its imitation parliamentary bodies 
in all British colonies, would wield not only full legis- 
lative power, unchecked by executive veto, but full 
executive power, and that perhaps the most remarkable 
movement in the United States of the present day 
might be characterized as a reaction from the reahzation 
of the fact that this is far from being the case with us — 
a reaction so violent, as to cause many patriotic men to 
advocate the absurdity of government by popular ple- 
biscite; so true it is always that 'Hhe best cure for the 
evils of democracy is more democracy;" only it must 
be democracy, developing of itself gradually and 
sincerely, through the free play of representative insti- 
tutions; and, even then, it can find its only secure basis 
in popular education and the general diffusion of 
information. 

Jefferson also at first wanted an amendment to 
prevent the Executive from being indefinitely self- 
successive. I think few of us in this year of our Lord's 
grace will challenge his position in this regard. He 
at first wanted one term of seven years. Then later 
he writes: ''Indeed, since the thing is established, I 
would wish it not to be altered during the life of our 
great leader [that is, Washington], whose executive 
talents are superior to those, I believe, of any man in 
the world, and who, alone, by the authority of his 
name and the confidence reposed in his perfect integrity, 
is fully qualified to put the new government so under 
way, as to secure it against the efforts of opposition. 
But, having derived from our error all the good there 
is in it, I hope we shall correct it, the moment we can 
no longer have the same name at the helm." The 



166 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

italics here, as always in these lectures, are mine and in- 
dicate what I believe to be the truth ; that not only in 
Mr. Jefferson's mind, but in the minds of many others, 
the indefinite reeligibility of the President owed its place 
in our Constitution to the certainty that the first Presi- 
dent would be George Washington, and that no term 
ought to be fixed for him, until he had taught the 
Government ''how to march." In his older age, after 
retirement, Jefferson congratulated himself upon the 
fact that Washington's example in refusing a third term, 
and his own imitation of this example and the reasons 
which he gave for it, would constitute a sort of unwritten 
law. This it has thus far been throughout all of our 
history, no President ever having sought reelection 
beyond the second term, except Grant, who was 
rebuked by his own party, and Roosevelt, who was 
rebuked by both parties. 

As usual, however, Jefferson's own language best 
expresses his position and motives. In a letter to John 
Taylor of Carolina, he says : — 

"My opinion originally was that the President of the United 
States should have been elected for seven years, and forever ineligible 
afterwards. I have since become sensible that seven years is too 
long to be irremovable, and that there should be a peaceable way of 
withdrawing a man in midway who is doing wrong. The service 
for eight years, with a power to remove at the end of the first four, 
comes nearer to my principle as corrected by experience; and it is 
in adherence to that, that I determine to withdraw at the end of 
my second term. The danger is that the indulgence and attach- 
ments of the people will keep a man in the chair after he becomes a 
dotard, and that re-election through life shall become habitual, and 
election for life follow that. General Wasliington set the example 
of voluntary retirement after eight years. I shall follow it. And 
a few more precedents wiU oppose the obstacle of habit to any one who 



DEMOCRATIZER OF FEDERAL INSTITUTIONS 167 

after awhile shall endeavor to extend his term. Perhaps it may beget 
a disposition to establish it by an amendment to the Constitution." 

Also these words by Jefferson ought to be remembered 
by everybody in connection with the Presidential 
tenure: ''If some period be not fixed, either by the 
Constitution, or by practice, the office will, though 
nominally elective, become for life and then hereditary." 
This doesn't seem so ''timid" to those of us, who have 
just actually witnessed an attempt to be elected to 
what he himself has publicly counted as a third 
term, made by a man, very popular and able, who 
has never answered the question, whether, at the end of 
that time, he would be a candidate for a fourth term, 
nor whether at the end of the fourth, he would be a 
candidate for a fifth. People who laugh at Jefferson's 
"suspicions" and "fears" and "credulity," etc., only 
have to wait long enough for their posterity to laugh 
at them. Our office of President would probably be 
as Jefferson at first feared it would be "but a poor 
edition of a Polish king," save for the example set by 
Washington and the reinforcement of this example by 
imitation and the clear statement of the reasons for it 
given by Thomas Jefferson. If we had begun by 
electing any one — even Washington — as long as he 
lived — even if this had been for only one more term — 
he dying during the period of a third — the precedent 
of electing men indefinitely would doubtless have been 
followed in the case of every popular man; undoubtedly 
in Jefferson's case, if he had permitted it, and later on 
in the case of Andrew Jackson, still later in the case of 
Grant, and still later in the case of Roosevelt; if these 
men had ever gotten to be Presidents at all; a question- 



168 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

able thing but for the contrary precedent. How long 
it would have taken reelections to become mere matters 
of form, is, of course, a matter of speculation, but that, 
sooner or later, they would have become so, is a matter 
of certainty. 

An indefinitely self -successive executive, easily turned 
into a dictatorship, has been the rock upon which the 
so-called South and Central American ''republics" 
have split, and the good sense of the American people 
in taking the advice of Washington and Jefferson has 
saved our institutions from a like death of the spirit. 
They will never be safe, until a constitutional amend- 
ment shall be passed, confining the Presidential term 
preferably to a term of eight years, with the right of 
recall by the people in the middle of the period; that is, 
two four-year terms, or else to one term of six or seven 
years. Thus far the people have said: "Washington 
would not, Jefferson would not. Grant could not, and 
nobody else shall," but the danger is ever present, as 
long as there are adventurous and ambitious and able 
men, conjoining to their courage and ambition and 
ability great popularity, in a word " men of the hour " 
— dangerous in a " crisis." Unpopular men, of course, 
have never been dangerous to free institutions any- 
where. 

Institutions are what practice makes them. Wash- 
ington and Jefferson never performed a greater service 
for the permanency of American institutions than this. 
In Jefferson's time our institutions were still subject to 
this danger. The people seemed not fully awakened to 
it. Eight State Legislatures had passed resolutions 
endorsing Jefferson for a third term. More would 



DEMOCRATIZER OF FEDERAL INSTITUTIONS 169 

have followed, if Jefferson had not discouraged it. 
Even Senator Lodge says there is no doubt he could 
have had it. Washington's precedent and Jefferson's 
ratification of it have constituted what has frequently 
been called a part of "the unwritten constitution of the 
Republic," like the Monroe Doctrine. The words in 
which Jefferson clothed his declination are wise and 
patriotic beyond measure: — 

"That I should lay down my charge at a proper period, is as 
much a duty as to have borne it faithfully. If some termination 
to the services of the chief magistrate be not fixed by the Consti- 
tution, or supphed by practice, his office, nominally for years, will, 
in fact, become for life; and history shows how easily that degen- 
erates into an inheritance. Beheving that a representative govern- 
ment, responsible at short periods of election, is that wliich produces 
the greatest sum of happiness to mankind, I feel it a duty to do no 
act which shall essentially impair that principle; and I should un- 
wilUngly be the person who, disregarding the sound precedent set 
by an illustrious predecessor, should furnish the first example of 
prolongation beyond the second term of office." 

However, already in Washington's time, the third 
term, with its indefinite tenure of executive office had 
failed the counter-revolutionists, as a political recourse. 
They could no longer shield themselves behind the 
great name and character of George Washington. He 
had retired in spite of all solicitation and protest. 
The Federalists must now fight their battles in the open. 
John Adams became their candidate — a man, who 
whatever his faults, was, as Jefferson once said of him, 
"as disinterested as the Being who made him." No 
other leader on the other side was thought of but 
Jefferson. Adams defeated him by three votes in the 
electoral college. Even at that, three electors from 



170 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

States, whose people had voted for Jefferson, voted for 
Adams. He never uttered a complaint. Jefferson 
feared nothing actively counter-revolutionary in the 
way of overturning our government by force from 
Adams personally. His confidence was justified. 

Jefferson was elected Vice-President. He carried 
with him to Washington a commonplace book of 
memoranda of parliamentary rules and practices. Out 
of it he constructed what we call ''Jefferson's Manual" 
— a manual of parliamentary rules and practice, yet 
the guide of the Senate and one of the guides for the 
House. It has permanently affected our parliamentary 
practice, and thus the practical working of our insti- 
tutions. 

Meanwhile the w^ar of ideas went on. Francis 
Walker says very advisedly: — 

"The blunder of the Federalists in enacting the sedition law was 
not an accidental one. On the contrary, it was thoroughly character- 
istic. It sprang out of a distrust of the masses; a belief that the 
people must always be led or repressed; a reliance on powers, estates 
and vested interests; a readiness to use force — all of which were of 
the very essence of the aristocratic policies of the last quarter of the 
Eighteenth Century." 

At another place in Mr. Walker's very readable 
book, referring to Jefferson's final victory, occurs this 
language : — 

"The reliance upon estates and powers within the common- 
wealth, which was of the very essence of Hamilton's pMlosophy of 
government, and in which even Washington and John Adams shared; 
the disposition to resort on one side to the influence of wealth, and 
on the other to intimidation and repression for checking the violence 
of political discussion: these things were to disappear and disappear 



DEMOCRATIZER OF FEDERAL INSTITUTIONS 171 

forever from American public life, for good or for evil, but altogether, 
as we may well believe, for good, in the large and long result." 

''Whom the gods would ruin, they first make mad." 
The Federalists helped Jefferson in his fight. They 
travelled at a reckless pace in their reaction against 
democracy. Alien and Sedition laws were working to 
a result contrary to their intent. As usual, unless 
accompanied by overwhelming force — so great as to 
cower men — governmental tyranny stimulated the 
love of liberty. French aliens fled from the country. 
The Irish — nearly all republicans and specially perse- 
cuted — had no country to flee to. It hadn't been 
long since Emmett was executed. 

I have already referred to the Freneau incident. A 
part of Secretary of State Jefferson's letter to Washing- 
ton concerning Freneau, is pertinent to the later 
Federalist attacks upon the liberty of the press. In 
it he administers this mild reproof : — 

"As to the merits or demerits of his [Freneau's] paper, they 
certainly concern me not. He and Fenno are rivals for the public 
favor. . . . No government ought to be without censors; and where 
the press is free, no one ever will [be]. If virtuous, it need not fear 
the fair operation of attack and defence. Nature has given to man 
no other means of sifting out the truth, either in rehgion, law, or 
politics. / think it is as honorable to the Government neither to know, 
nor notice, its sycophants or censors, as it would be undignified and 
criminal to pamper the former and persecute the latter." 

I think this last sentence is one of the grandest 
ever penned, and if it contained a suggestive admonition 
to the Father of His Country himself, I do not the less 
value it for that. Even "fathers of their countries," if 
sincere republicans, must put up with free speech and 



172 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

free printing, subject only to the restraints of the 
ordinary laws of slander and libel. 

The alien law gave authority to the President to 
banish from the country ''all such aliens as he should 
judge dangerous to the peace and safety of the United 
States!" 

Jefferson can never receive sufficient praise for having 
fought these measures, and measures like them, 
through his friends upon the floor of the two Houses, 
and, finally, by calling into action the protestant powers 
of the States. 

A part of the permanent influence which he has 
exercised upon American institutions consists in the 
fact that, after he had completed his work of antagonism 
to this legislation, nothing like it has ever since been 
attempted, except once in a smaller way, during Presi- 
dent Roosevelt's administration, when it was sought to 
revive the spirit of the sedition laws by invoking the 
aid of the judicial power of the United States to 
punish certain newspapers for having printed so-called 
malicious things against the national administration 
and public officials, and against the go-betweens inter- 
ested in the French Canal-Bond-Sale. A just judge 
refused to be used. There is happily no such thing 
known as yet to our institutions as "Hbelling the 
Government." 

As to the alien laws, the Chauvinism which consti- 
tuted the spirit of them was revived by the Whig 
leaders of the so-called ''Know-Nothing" movement, 
but though it looked for a while like a prairie fire, fated 
to sweep all before it, the party of Jefferson remembered, 
even then, enough of his teaching to extinguish the 
flames. 



DEMOCRATIZER OF FEDERAL INSTITUTIONS 173 

The most fortunate thing for the country that 
happened in Adams' administration was that the war 
with France, for which we had made such great prepara- 
tions, did not occur. General Washington was ap- 
pointed commander in chief and Hamilton second in 
command. If the war had come, the work of de- 
mocratization would have been halted, perhaps for a 
time, perhaps for all time. But there is little doubt in 
my mind of the fact that it would have made Hamilton's 
choice the next President of the United States and 
himself virtually political dictator. There is equally 
little doubt of the fact that Hamilton would have used 
his great power, as the glorified commander of a suc- 
cessful army, for the purpose of rendering the govern- 
ment stronger, or ''more stable," as he would have 
expressed it. He would have led our army against the 
Spanish colonies in Florida, or Mexico, as the Miranda 
correspondence and negotiations prove. In fact, it is 
hard to see what we wanted with an army, if our only 
purpose were to fight France. As long as she was at 
war with Great Britain, she could not land a regiment 
upon the American continent, nor did we want to land 
one in Europe. There was and could be literally 
nothing French in America to fight on land. 

H. C. Merwin, a very moderate man and a very fair 
one, speaking of the time of our anticipated war with 
France under Adams' administration, writes: — 

"Hamilton was not the man to overturn the govenment out of 
personal ambition, nor even in order to set up a monarchy in place 
of a republic. But he had convinced himself that the republic 
must some day fall of its own weight. He was always anticipating 
a 'crisis,' and this word is repeated over and over again in his cor- 



174 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

respondence. It even occurs in the crucial sentence of that pathetic 
document which he wrote on the eve of his fatal duel. When the 
fatal 'crisis' came, Hamilton meant to be on hand; and, if possible, 
at the head of an army." 

Nothing can account for the fanatical hatred visited 
upon Adams' head by Hamilton and the other chief 
Federalists, because of his wise and patriotic act, unless 
it be, that it balked deeper and further designs. 
Nothing was left to fight France about. The amende 
honorable had been made, our demands upon her had 
been acceded to. Adams was glad of it. The country 
was glad of it. Peace ensued. 

Meantime there had appeared upon the scene — 
flitting ghost-like, in and out, first on one and then 
on the other side of the Atlantic, conferring with the 
younger Pitt and with Rufus King, our Hamiltonian 
Ambassador in London, and corresponding unrebuked, 
indirectly, and then directly, with Hamilton, and later 
with President Adams, who, in his honesty and patri- 
otism, sat down on him extinguishingly — one Miranda 
— a Spanish- American of Caracas. For all of which see 
Hamilton's, King's, and Pickering's letters, but above 
all the Edinburgh Review, Volume 13, pages 287, 289, 
et seq., and study Miranda's subsequent connection 
with Aaron Burr. 

But for this peace with France, there would have 
been effected the British alliance proposed by Hamilton 
in Washington's Cabinet, and of which Washington had 
said, ''the remedy is worse than the disease"; a large 
army would have been put on foot, with Hamilton at 
the head of it, and probably the "crisis" might have 
happened! 



DEMOCRATIZER OF FEDERAL INSTITUTIONS 175 

Meanwhile, what John Randolph called the ''Ameri- 
can reign of terror" was arousing more and more 
indignation, and the project of raising an army, when 
taken in connection with the alien and sedition laws, 
was arousing fears. The Republicans knew that the 
counter-revolutionary alarm about "a. French in- 
vasion" was manufactured to furnish a reason for 
raising an army, and that the army might be used, in 
a way dangerous, at any rate, to the Republicans — if 
not to the Republic. The officering of the army did 
not decrease this excitement. It was known that 
Washington could be only nominal chief, if active opera- 
tions in the field had to take place; that Hamilton would 
be the real chief in command, and that his assistant 
officers — every one of them — were Federalists. Free 
speech and free printing had been already attacked, 
judges on the federal bench were already making po- 
litical harangues against ''democracy" to grand juries 
and petty juries, so that you may imagine the situation. 
None of this distrust and anxiety was lessened by the 
fact that Hamilton was not a popular man — did not, 
^in fact, dare to run for an elective office — was "gen- 
erally beaten in his own State," and, therefore, was 
popularly supposed to be willing to make an attack 
upon the elective system. 

The country was at white heat. The Virginia and 
Kentucky Resolutions, as State protests, were flung 
into the ring. The repetition in them of the thoughts 
of the Declaration of Independence had an admonitory, 
if not an ominous sound. 

That Hamilton contemplated the use of force is 
inferrible at least from his letter of advice to his 



176 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

followers in Congress at the beginning of the Con- 
gressional session of 1798-1799. Read this: ''Our 
miUtary force should be kept upon its actual footing; 
making provision for a reinlistment of men for Jive years, 
in the event of a settlement of differences with France. 
. . . The laws respecting volunteer companies and the 
eventual army should he rendered permanent, and the 
Executive should proceed without delay to organize 
the latter." 

His scheme went still further. He advised legis- 
lation, or amendments, whereby the large states should 
be subdivided by Congress into two or more states 
each. This was aimed at Virginia and Pennsylvania — 
both democratic and strategically situated to oppose 
an armed administration at Washington. 

This is significant and is a tribute to Hamilton's 
foresightedness, in view of what afterwards occurred, 
because it looked, for a little while, after Jefferson's 
election by the people, as if unconstitutional methods 
might be adopted to seat a Federalist and to keep either 
him or Burr from being seated. The Governors of 
Virginia and Pennsylvania, therefore, began to mobilize 
their armed forces with the view of protecting a con- 
vention of the States to be called, in such an event, by 
the President and the Vice-President elect, as proposed 
by Jefferson, and of enforcing whatever measure of 
settlement of the issue it might decree. 

If Hamilton's scheme of having Congress subdivide 
the large States could have been acted upon, the two 
great middle states might have been rendered harm- 
less to the Federalist party and helpless for the 
defence of popular hberty and the enforcement of the 



DEMOCRATIZER OF FEDERAL INSTITUTIONS 177 

right of election. Again, if Hamilton's standing army 
in times of peace (for he advises its organization "in 
the event of a settlement of differences with France") 
could have been put on its feet, the Federalists could 
have defeated the will of the people by force, notwith- 
standing Virginia and Pennsylvania. 

Here is another excerpt from his letter of advice to 
the Federalists, as if alien and sedition laws had not 
maddened the people enough : — 

"Fourth. Laws for restraining and punishing incendiary and 
seditious practices. It will be useful to declare that all such writings, 
etc., which at common law are libels, if levelled against any officer 
whatsoever of the United States, shall be cognizable in the courts of the 
United States. To preserve confidence in the officers of the General 
Government, by preserving their reputations from malicious and 
unfounded slanders, is essential, to enable them to fulfill the ends of 
their appointment. It is, therefore, both constitutional and politic 
to place their reputations under the guardianship of the courts of the 
United States. They ought not to be left to the cold and reluctant 
protection of State courts, always temporizing, and sometimes dis- 
affected." 

Nothing has ever been equal, perhaps, to what this 
last scheme would have resulted in, except what took 
place in the South during the very worst period of 
reconstruction. Then the manner in which he finds 
constitutional warrant for it! Broad implication with 
a vengeance! The major premise is that an officer 
of the United States cannot properly attend to his 
duties unless confidence in him is preserved; whether 
he deserves it or not ! The understood minor is obvious. 
The conclusion is: ''therefore, it is constitutional to 
make the conmion law crime of libel, when United States 
13 



178 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

officials are alleged to be libelled, jurisdictionable in 
the federal courts!" 

Underlying all of this is the idea that it is dangerous 
to the social structure for common folks to talk about 
pubHc officials! 

I said above, '^whether he deserves it or not," because 
what are these ''common law libels" which were to be 
"judged in the federal courts," when the plaintiff was 
a United States official? Turn to your Blackstone and 
read as follows: ''It is immaterial, with respect to the 
essence of a libel, whether the matter of it he true or false, 
since the provocation (to a breach of the peace) and 
not the falsity, is the thing to be punished criminally." 
So that, therefore, anything, true or false, which brought 
into contempt or ridicule (by printing or writing or 
exposing) any civil or military official of the United 
States, would have been cognizable in a federal court. 
A political administration, which Hamilton was fond of 
calling "the government," would have had some eighty- 
odd judges, which Hamilton proposed in this same 
paper, to create ("at the rate of four for Connecticut"), 
and, in addition to them, "federal justices of the peace 
in each county" of the United States, to hunt down and 
inform against "libellers" of the government. More- 
over, these justices of the peace would have been non- 
salaried officers, who would have made their living by 
their fees! 

One of the grounds upon which Hamilton places his 
recommendation of this enormous increase of the 
Federal judiciary, is that it would bring with it "salu- 
tary patronage." It is curious, too, that in this same 
paper, one reason that he gives for recommending open- 



DEMOCRATIZER OF FEDERAL INSTITUTIONS 179 

ing canals and improving waterways is, that "it will be 
a useful source of influence for the government." 
Hamilton, of course, did not regard these purposes as 
corrupt and corrupting, but it is at least natural that 
Jeffersonians did. 

Judges, ''at the rate of four to Connecticut," with 
incidental marshals and clerks ''on the side," and 
United States justices of the peace at the rate of one to 
a county, would have been abundant, if not "salutary" 
patronage, and a wide-spread if not "useful" "source 
of influence" for the Federalist "government." 

Is it any wonder that the people thought that the 
Federalists were looking to two things, to wit: The 
judiciary and the army, as vehicles for the overthrow 
of popular liberty? 

Hamilton suggests in a letter to Senator Gunn of 
December 22, 1798, fifty thousand men as the right 
size of the army. Fifty thousand then would mean 
eight hundred and fifty thousand now, preserving the 
ratio to population. The people outside the army 
would have been as nearly helpless then in the defence 
of their rights and liberties against fifty thousand 
trained soldiers, as now they would be against eight 
hundred and fifty thousand. 

In a letter to Harrison Gray Otis, dated January 26, 
1799, he says that he would be glad to see a law em- 
powering the President, if the negotiations with 
France should not "terminate in peace by the first of 
the succeeding August," to "declare that a state of 
war existed" between the two countries, so that he 
could use the land and naval forces of the United 
States in the "most effectual way for annoying the 



180 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

enemy," and then he suggests this language for the 
Act: ''for preventing and frustrating hostile designs of 
France, either directly or indirectly, through any of her 
allies." Spain was then the helpless "ally" of France 
— chained behind Napoleon's triumphal car. 

Here is a request that Congress, abdicating the 
power to declare war, should empower the President to 
''declare that a state of war existed," not because a 
state of war did actually exist, but, as a fiction of the 
law! Thus anxious was he for war and an army to go 
with it. 

Fisher Ames, a Federalist leader, in a reply to a 
letter, in Gibb's "Memoirs," Volume 2, page 313, 
says : — 

"... Though you justly remark, it [meaning an army] is no 
engine of the Government, and the civil magistrate and the process 
are better ordinary means of self-defence, yet I hesitate to admit 
that, therefore, the army must not be levied and relied on. . . . 
/ would have in preparation the force to decide the issue in favor of 
Government." 

Again my reader will notice this use of the word 
"Government" (not the government) when admin- 
istration is meant. 

Who can say that if we had had war, with such a 
spirit behind it and such leaders in control of it, the 
American people would have "come out of it" "as free 
as they were before" it occurred? Jefferson feared not 
and expressed his fear. Truly one of the greatest 
services John Adams ever performed for his country 
was taking the bit in his teeth, while he ran away to the 
Peace Goal. 

Now mark this next and desperate move of the 



DEMOCRATIZER OF FEDERAL INSTITUTIONS 181 

Counter-Revolutionists. The result of the election in 
New York had demonstrated that Jefferson was to 
receive its electoral vote. On May 7, 1800, Hamilton 
wrote an ever memorable letter to Jay, then Gov- 
ernor of N. Y., in which he proposed — notwithstand- 
ing the RepubUcan majority in the State Legislature, 
the members whereof had just been elected distinctly 
and by previous agreement, to choose the electors of 
the State — to defeat the will of the people by a scheme, 
which he proceeded to unfold. It was for the hold- 
over Federalist Legislature to reverse its former action 
and to have the people vote once more — this time 
by districts. But let us quote a part of his own 
language: — 

"The calling of the Legislature will have for its object the 
choosing of electors by the people in districts; this (as Pennsylvania 
will do nothing) will ensure a majority of votes in the United States 
for a Federal candidate. The measure will not fail to be approved 
by all the Federal party; while it will, no doubt, be condemned by 
the opposite. As to its intrinsic nature, it is justified by unequivocal 
reasons of public safety. 

"The reasonable part of the world will, I believe, approve it. 
They will see it as a proceeding out of the common course, but 
warranted by the particular nature of the crisis, and the great catise 
of social order." 

Here is Hamilton's everlasting "crisis" recurring 
again, and here is the reason given, since the world 
began, by monarchs and aristocrats, for opposing 
repubUcanism and refusing to abide by the result of 
elections, to wit: the maintenance of "the cause of 
social order." 

Read this letter. It has been spoken of as "remark- 
able and extraordinary." It is not. It is but a normal 



182 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

outcropping of a political system and an anti-demo- 
cratic creed, in which Hamilton was thoroughly 
sincere. 

Honest old John Jay — amongst whose papers after 
his death this letter was found by his son and biog- 
rapher — had endorsed upon the back of it, in his own 
handwriting, these words: ''Proposing a measure for 
party purposes which I think it would not become me to 
adopt." 

Hamilton's scheme in New York, taken in connection 
with the scheme to which he refers to throw out the 
vote of Pennsylvania, by not permitting either its 
people or its Legislature to vote for Presidential electors 
— a scheme to be accomplished by a hold-over Feder- 
aUst State Senate refusing to act at all — would have 
destroyed all possibihty of Jefferson's election, and 
were both desperate measures. If they had been 
carried out, the chances are that the American union 
would have been dismembered. At any rate, civil 
war must have ensued. The South and West and the 
people of New York and Pennsylvania would hardly 
have submitted peaceably to this nulhfication of 
Pennsylvania's and this partial reversal of New York's 
vote. If the Union had been preserved, it would have 
been preserved at the end of a war, and the Govern- 
ment of the United States, if the Federalists had won, 
would have come out of that war no longer a govern- 
ment of delegated powers, but a Hamiltonian strong 
government of assertedly inherent powers, whatever 
its form. I do not doubt that Hamilton, thinking 
himself quite a military character, felt assured of 
Federahst victory. In his very boyhood he had hoped 



DEMOCRATIZER OF FEDERAL INSTITUTIONS 183 

for a war, so that he "might gain distinction" and at 
every opportunity of his hfe, he displayed absolute 
confidence in his military genius. 

About four years after this time, Gouverneur Morris, 
Hamilton's truest friend, who knew him better than 
anybody, in a letter to Aaron Ogden, dated December 
28, 1804, speaking of Hamilton, said: — 

"He knew that his favorite form [of government ] was inad- 
missible, unless as the result of civil war; and I suspect that his behef 
in that, which he called his approaching crisis, arose from a con- 
viction that the kind of government most suitable in his opinion 
to this extensive country, could be established in no other way." 

The language is that of the cool, cynical, penetrating, 
observant friend of Hamilton, the man selected by his 
family to pronounce his eulogy, and whose opinions, as 
a rule, ran parallel with Hamilton's. 

But Jefferson's great task seems done. At least the 
people vote to endorse him and his gospel: ''Back to the 
principles of the American Revolution." But the great 
task only seems finished. The Counter-Revolutionists 
had had their Leipzig. They insisted upon meeting their 
Waterloo. True Jefferson had been elected, and there 
was no complaint that it was not by a remarkably 
honest and fair vote. Yet he, and, what seems never to 
have occurred to these men, the people, might yet be 
cheated or bullied out of the fruits of their victory. 
Not a Democratic-Republican in all the land had voted 
for anybody but Jefferson to be President. Not a man, 
however partisan or bitter, pretended it. But again, 
''whom the gods would ruin, they first make mad." 
Jefferson and Burr had received the same number of 
electoral votes. This left the House to determine 



184 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

between them. It had no other function. It is to 
Jefferson's victory over those engaged in this mad 
attempt to overthrow popular rule and "the voice of 
the majority honestly expressed," that, next to our 
independence and the adoption of the present Consti- 
tution, with its first ten amendments, our institutions 
owe most for their permanency and stability and spirit. 
Had this attempt succeeded, every subsequent Presi- 
dential election would have been an invitation to civil 
war, or a submission to usurpation. 

To the spectacle of what occurred attention is now 
invited. Throughout all this, by the way, Gouverneur 
Morris seems to have acted honestly and with a 
gentlemanly appreciation of duty. What is quoted 
below, he seems to have abided by. 

In a letter to Hamilton, on December 19th, he 
says : — 

" It is supposed that Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Burr will have equal 
votes, and various speculations are made and making on that 
subject. At first it was proposed to prevent any election, and thereby 
throw the Government into the hands of a President of the Senate. It 
even went so far as to cast about for the person. This appeared 
to me a wild measure, and I endeavored to dissuade those gentlemen 
from it, who mentioned it to me. The object of many is to take 
Mr. Burr, and I should not be surprised if that measure were 
adopted. Not meaning to enter into intrigues, I have merely 
expressed the opinion, that since it was evidently the intention of 
our fellow-citizens to make Mr. Jefferson their President, it seems 
proper to fulfill that intention." 

None of the other Federalist leaders, except Huger of 
South Carolina, seemed to be impressed with that plain 
homely truth. The Secretary of State, John Marshall, 
wrote to Hamilton on January 1st that he "had not 



DEMOCRATIZER OF FEDERAL INSTITUTIONS 185 

determined" to which of the two, Jefferson or Burr, 
''preference was due," but that he ''could not bring 
himself to aid Mr. Jefferson!" 

Rutledge of South Carolina, a man of extraordinarily- 
high honor in ordinary affairs, wrote: "Should Mr. 
Jefferson be disposed to make (as he would term it) 
an improvement (and as we should deem it a sub- 
version) of our Constitution, the attempt would be 
fatal to us." Now mark the conclusion, which shows 
the character of "subversion of our Constitution" to 
which Rutledge was referring: "For he [i. e., Jefferson] 
would begin by democratizing the people, and end 
with throwing everything into their hands! ^' (Italics 
and exclamation are both mine.) This was such an 
enormous iniquity that even an honest gentleman like 
Rutledge wanted it prevented by defeating the known 
will of the people! It shows that when once the 
poisonous germ of aristocratic arrogance gets into a 
man's head, it destroys all vestiges of a moral code in 
affairs of State. 

Fortunately for our institutions and peace, Alex- 
ander Hamilton feared and hated Burr, more than he 
hated Jefferson. 

But while trying to persuade all his Federalist friends 
— and really persuading not one — to vote for Jefferson 
as against Burr, he did it on the ground that Burr 
was "a Catiline," and all that. He exhibited neither 
any motive higher than one of personal choice, nor the 
slightest indication of a consciousness of the binding 
obligation on the citizen to obey the will of the nation 
honestly expressed in a democratic republic. 

Neither then nor afterwards did he betray any 



186 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

regret, or any consciousness of wrong concerning what 
he had connived at in Pennsylvania, and attempted 
to persuade John Jay and the Federahst Legisla- 
ture to do in New York. He never once took the 
position taken even by cynical Gouverneur Morris, and 
much less that taken by Huger of South Carolina — 
who lived and died a Federalist, but a republican — 
to wit: — in Huger's words — that ''the people had 
elected" Jefferson, and that "it was for them to elect 
a President, and not for me," and that, therefore, he 
would vote to seat him, over Burr — the only consti- 
tutional choice left him being between these two. 

The Federalists had their choice between three 
things, either to elect Burr, or confirm the people's 
election of Jefferson, or to continue the deadlock, and 
thereby leave the Government without executive head. 
In the last event, the plan was for the Federalist 
Congress to usurp the authority of "reorganizing the 
Government" by passing a law vesting the chief 
magistracy in some man of its choice — John Marshall, 
Secretary of State, being apparently the favorite, 
though the Speaker of the House, and the President 
pro tempore of the Senate, all three Federalists, were 
mentioned. 

Jefferson very quietly, but resolutely, denied the right 
of Congress to "reorganize the government," or "any 
part of it"; said that no authority existed for the 
purpose "save in the people themselves," and that 
"they might authorize a convention to reorganize and 
even amend the machine." This suggestion of a con- 
vention was an insuperable checkmate to the Counter- 
Revolutionists. 



DEMOCRATIZER OF FEDERAL INSTITUTIONS 187 

His constant reply to everybody who approached 
him was that "there were ten individuals in the House 
of Representatives, any one of whom by changing his 
vote" could not only relieve the deadlock, but do the 
will of the people. He said, that if the House of 
Representatives should elect Burr, he and his party 
would submit. It had a technically constitutional right 
to do that, although in doing it its members would 
commit substantial treason against the known will of 
the American people. But if they undertook to pass a 
law, to use his language, ''for putting the government 
into the hands of an officer," that would be clearly a 
usurpation to which Americans could not submit, 
and would call for a different and more virile treatment. 
So, at his suggestion, he and all his friends "declared 
openly," that "the day such an act passed, the Middle 
States [meaning Virginia and Pennsylvania] would 
arm," and "no such usurpation, even for a single day, 
should be submitted to." 

"This first shook them," and then they were com- 
pletely alarmed at "the ultimate resort" for which 
Jefferson declared, to wit: "A convention to reorganize 
the government and to amend the Constitution." Of 
course, the convention once sitting would have un- 
limited powers, subject to State ratifications. All that 
was necessary was to protect it in its deliberations. 
Jefferson said that "the very word convention gave 
them the horrors, as in the present democratical spirit 
of America, they fear they should lose some of the 
favorite morsels of the Constitution." This declaration 
and this "ultimate resort" is what really called a first 
halt upon the Federahst conspiracy to remain in power 



188 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

despite the election. Then they tried to get Jefferson 
to make terms. But here too they failed. In a letter 
to Monroe, of February 15th, he says: ''I have declared 
to them unequivocally that I would not receive the 
government on capitulations, and that I would not go 
into it with my hands tied." 

They had pursued the usual course of enemies of 
democracy and of popular liberty; they had first 
contemplated a clear usurpation, and — that being 
balked — they had then attempted to prevail upon the 
choice of the people, in return for office and emolument, 
to prove traitor to his constituency by becoming the 
condition-bound servant of the self-asserted better 
element. 

They thus found themselves confined to the election 
of Burr, hoping from his gratitude a betrayal of his 
constituents. 

Even to do this they must make a break in the 
Democratic-Republican phalanx in the House. The 
House, when voting by States, was a tie. 

Jefferson's poHcy throughout was not only wise and 
bold, but it was assured, unless some of his own party 
deserted him for Burr. The Federalists had not suc- 
ceeded in organizing their army. John Adams's ''fool 
peace" had balked that. The people were no longer 
afraid. Two great strong States — Virginia and Penn- 
sylvania, strategically situated — had as executives 
two quietly-determined men, Monroe and McKean, 
who were mobilizing the State forces in order to protect 
the convention, which, if need were, would be called 
by the President-elect, and to which every Republican 
State, and the Republican voters in the other States, 



DEMOCRATIZER OF FEDERAL INSTITUTIONS 189 

would at once send delegates, with such consequence of 
a thorough democratization of the government as might 
follow. At every point of the game Jefferson had the 
counter-revolutionists checkmated. 

In a letter to James Madison, dated February 18, 
1801, he says: ''The minority in the House of Repre- 
sentatives, after seeing the impossibihty of electing 
Burr, the certainty that a legislative usurpation would 
be resisted by arms, and recourse had to a convention 
to reorganize and amend the Constitution," were at 
their wit's ends. Things were brought to an end for 
them when ''Morris, of Vermont, withdrew, which 
made Lyon's vote that of his State." This was 
Matthew Lyon, the Jeffersonian, who had served a jail 
sentence under the Sedition Law. 

This Morris was a relative — nephew, I believe — of 
Gouverneur Morris, to some extent under the influence 
of the latter, and probably in this particular act actu- 
ally influenced by him. All the subsequent attempts of 
Bayard, of Delaware, to take the credit to himself of 
what occurred, and then to tarnish that credit by 
claiming that his act of withholding Delaware's vote 
had been conditioned upon certain promises made by 
Jefferson, through Smith of Maryland, all of which was 
denied point blank by Smith; all the claims of Hamil- 
ton's friends, that he ought to have the credit, are 
equally baseless. Bayard quit only when the spectre 
of a convention frightened him into a semi-paralyzed 
halt. Hamilton did want Jefferson to beat Burr, and 
in so far as that is creditable to him, he deserves 
credit. 

The only other FederaHst, besides Robert Morris and 



.190 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

Gouverneur Morris, that deserves any credit, was Huger 
of South CaroHna, to whose utterance I have already 
referred. At this stage Huger made an agreement with 
his colleagues from South Carolina, that they would 
all withdraw, and permit the delegation to vote a 
blank; but it must be remembered, that even if Huger' s 
colleagues had not agreed to that, Morris's withdrawal, 
leaving Lyon to cast the Vermont vote for Jefferson, 
settled the election. 

Meanwhile, the rank and file of the Federalists had 
not sympathized, as a body, with this action of their 
leaders. Some of them felt humiliated; some angry; 
many of them went over bodily to the Republican party, 
and Jefferson properly said: "This conduct of the mi- 
nority has done in one week what very probably could 
hardly have been effected by years of mild and im- 
partial administration." 

The full measure of the success which Jefferson had 
wrought can be appreciated, when one contemplates 
this contemptible scene in which the reactionary 
leaders had acted their respective roles, and then 
remembers, that there has never been another day to 
dawn in America, when any lot of politicians any- 
where — however talented, rich or respectable — 
would have dared to attempt to reenact it. No party 
will ever attempt again to set aside the undisputed 
result of an honest election by the people. Such an 
X-ray did this pitiable spectacle shed upon the nature 
and tendencies of the counter-revolution, that two- 
thirds of both Houses and three-fourths of the States, 
as soon as the machinery provided by the Constitution 



DEMOCRATIZER OF FEDERAL INSTITUTIONS 191 

could move, enacted an amendment to the Consti- 
tution, that it might never be repeated. 

This amendment constitutes one of the permanent 
gains for American institutions, which may properly be 
credited to Jefferson's cool and unwavering constancy, 
and to the inspiration it gave to that superb, unbroken 
and unbreakable phalanx of his followers in the House, 
who asserted the elementary doctrine: "Let the will of 
the people, honestly and constitutionally expressed, 
be done." This elementary creed of republics, no 
single Federalist leader — except one Morris at the 
last, and another Morris and Huger, from the begin- 
ning — seemed so much as to scent. 

Bayard, of Delaware, who may be said to be the man, 
who historically sang the Federalist swan song, in a 
letter to Alexander Hamilton, dated March 8, 1801, 
which may be found in Hamilton's ''Works," Volume 
6, page 524, says: "The means existed of electing Burr, 
but this required his cooperation. By deceiving one 
man, a great blockhead, and by tempting two, not 
incorruptible, he might have secured a majority of the 
States." Bayard adds an expression of his indignation 
and disgust in these words: "He [Burr] will never have 
another chance of being President of the United States; 
and the little use, which he has made of the one which 
has occurred, gives me but an humble opinion of the 
talents of an unprincipled man." Nothing better 
shows the spirit of the anti-Democracy. That Burr 
was an unprincipled man, there can be no doubt, but 
if it be true that he refused to "deceive one man" and 
to corrupt two others, then there stands in history at 
least something to his credit! Now, there was no man 



192 PERMANENT INFLXJENCE OF JEFFERSON 

of higher character, more respectable talent, greater 
personal probity in private life than James Bayard of 
Delaware ; yet he uttered the words quoted. They were 
the natural outcropping of a pohtical system, the 
keystones of whose structure were contempt for the 
''common herd," and the divine right of the self- 
assumed '' better element " to rule. For this world has 
been plagued not only with the doctrine of the ''divine 
right of kings," but with this lesser, and later, doctrine, 
based upon a still more insidious assumption. A little 
thing like deceiving a blockhead and buying two 
corrupt politicians ought not to stand in the way of 
the rule of the wise and good! If given the creed, the 
conduct follows. 

Professor Tucker, in his "Life of Jefferson," to show 
how far this awful doctrine could carry its wicked 
influence, says: "General Lee, of Virginia, it was said, 
was earnest in advising this desperate measure" (that 
is, putting the Secretary of State in as President). 
This Lee was "Light Horse Harry" of "the Legion," 
a brave soldier and a gentleman, with generations of 
gentlemen's blood in his veins! Gouverneur Morris, 
in a contemporaneous letter, says: "Desperate meas- 
ures were contemplated," and describes what the 
desperate measures were — substantially what Bayard 
said they were. 

Jefferson owed no debt of gratitude to the Federalist 
leaders, and the war between him and them must go 
on; but he felt quite differently towards the rank and 
file of that party — the misled, and not the mis- 
leaders. They had never been consciously and pre- 
meditatedly monocratic. From the very first hour 



DEMOCRATIZER OF FEDERAL INSTITUTIONS 193 

of his administration the administration was fair and 
even generous to them, and every possible means of 
reconciling them to republican rule was used. This 
spirit was fully disclosed in his inaugural address. 

This inaugural address has had a permanent and 
abiding influence upon the political thought and the 
spirit of the institutions of the American people. It 
has been from the day it was spoken down to now a 
''Sermon on the Mount," not alone for those who call 
themselves Democratic, with a big "D," but for all 
men with democratic hearts and purposes. He empha- 
sizes as "the vital principle of republics, from which 
there is no appeal save to force " — the vital principle 
of despotisms — ''an absolute acquiescence in the 
decisions of the majority honestly expressed." He 
does not once mention the House of Representatives, 
nor, except in this indirect way, criticize it. If the 
reader has not read this address, I request him to read 
it at once; if he has read it, let him read it over again. 

However hypocritical the pretense upon the lips of 
politicians may often be, no man has, since 1808, 
hoped to be taken as thoroughly American, unless he 
professed faith, in the long run, in the common sense 
of the people, and their "essential rectitude of purpose," 
a faith which was expressed by Lincoln later in the 
phrase, "You can fool some of the people all the time 
and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot 
fool all the people all the time;" a faith, which was 
much better expressed by Jefferson in the words, " Error 
is not to be feared, if reason be left free to combat it." 

But even with the result, the counter-revolutionary 
scheming did not cease. In answer to a letter in which 
14 



194 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

Hamilton had raised the question of the Republican 
repeal of the Federal judiciary act — through whose 
new and numerous judges the Federalists had hoped 
still to unshape our institutions — Bayard warned him 
that he, Bayard, had ''had an opportunity of learning 
the opinions of the Chief Justice," and that the latter 
''considered the late repeahng act as operative in de- 
priving the judges of all power derived under the act 
repealed." By the way, this sheds a side-Ught on some 
things. Here was Bayard, practically the Senate 
leader of the Federalists, getting an " off-the-bench " 
opinion from John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United 
States, in advance of the presentation of a case before 
the court, and while the public generally would remain 
in ignorance of the position, which the court would 
take. I remember the fine indignation of a gentleman, 
whom I once knew, the judge of a Mississippi circuit 
court, when a lawyer came to him off the bench to get 
his opinion concerning the unadjudicated constitution- 
ality of a State statute. 

Hamilton's outline of a so-called "Christian Con- 
stitutional Society," though it "died aborning" under 
Bayard's discouragement, and probably the discourage- 
ment of others — practical men — was the last desperate 
dying struggle on the part of the American Counter- 
Revolution. With it ends the last readable page of this 
"Suppressed Chapter of our History." Read it; it 
is worth reading. It is such a curious anachronism to 
have been written in America, for Americans. 

While apparently intending to criticize Jefferson, 
Curtis, in the following words, pays him the highest 
possible tribute: — 



DEMOCRATIZER OF FEDERAL INSTITUTIONS 195 

"Jefferson intended that the new nation should be a democracy, 
and he would rather have let the whole world perish than that this 
purpose should fail. Nevertheless, he was the most absolute 
monarch that ever sat in the Presidential chair. Although he 
introduced the practice of discussing all matters in his Cabinet and 
deciding the questions of importance by vote, his powerful indi- 
viduahty and persuasive reasoning controlled liis advisers in that 
official family, and in Congress. He exercised an influence in both 
Houses of the National Legislature and with the people that has 
never been equalled by any of his predecessors. He formed a 
powerful party, he directed its action, and he selected its principles, 
but he never assumed the attitude of a 'boss.'" 

In connection with this statement that ''Jefferson led 
his party," as thoroughly as "an absolute monarch," 
it may well be remarked that America has never 
suffered from too much political leadership. We have 
not had enough of it. True, we have had too much 
unofficial, unelected, irresponsible leadership, or too 
many ''bosses." But a man selected to lead and 
leading by convincing others that he is right, by appeals 
to the popular heart and head, has no followers except 
volunteers, and, they even, not "for the war," but only 
during his " good behavior." The reason why a genuine 
democracy, oftener than a party not founded on its 
principles, follows a leader, is because it is only the 
head of a party with that faith, that dares or can appeal 
frankly to the common-sense and common-conscience 
of the masses. How can a multitude follow him, who 
does not trust them, nor, at heart, recognize their 
reason and rectitude of purpose, and not recognizing 
them, can therefore not sympathetically appeal to them? 



CHAPTER VI 

THE INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON AS PRESIDENT 
1. "my passion is peace" 

Throughout Jefferson's whole administration, the 
chief thing in his view was the democratization of the 
Federal Government. For this, a frugal, simple 
government, and peace, were absolutely necessary. 
This accounts to a large extent for his peace-at-almost- 
any-price policy. 

In a letter to Noah Worcester (Massachusetts col- 
lection), he says: — 

"Of my disposition to maintain peace until its condition shall 
be less tolerable than war itself, the world has had proofs, and more, 
perhaps, than it has approved ; . . . if by the inculcations of reason 
or religion, the perversities of our nature can be so far corrected, 
as sometimes to prevent the necessity, real or supposed, of an appeal 
to the blinder scourge of war, devastation and murder, the be- 
nevolent endeavor of friends of peace will not be entirely unre- 
munerated." 

If deeds, or lack of deeds, flowing from such a creed 
be error, it is humanizing error, requiring more reso- 
lution and courage, than it required a hundred years 
after the time, for a citizen of a compact, wealthy and 
strong country, of nearly one hundred millions of 
inhabitants, unassailable by any foreign influence to 
call it "infamous conduct." 

If infamous, Washington's administration was "in- 

196 



INFLUENCE AS PRESIDENT 197 

famous" for the same reason, and that of Adams only 
a little less so. 

Washington submitted to the humiliation of recom- 
mending and signing the Jay Treaty. It required 
courage to do it. 

If our early history, while the government was 
a-forming, had been either one of war and victory and 
conquest, or one of war and defeat and desolation 
and debt, a beginner can spell out for us a fate totally 
different from that which we have enjoyed. 

Washington and Jefferson were great, but greater in 
nothing than in not permitting *'the Maniacal War 
Fury of Europe" to spread its contagion to America. 
Washington, perhaps, deserves the more credit of the 
two, because he first set the pace. However that may 
be, there is "glory enough to go round," as Schley 
said, and Washington's preeminence consists in this, 
that without his great name, neither Jefferson as his 
Secretary of State, nor any other man, amidst all the 
then provocations to popular passion, could have 
started us off right, as ''The Great Peace Nation of 
the Earth." 

Few have better expressed our special reasons and 
our peculiar opportunity to set an example of peace to 
all the world, than Jefferson : — 

"Separated by a wide ocean from the nations of Europe, and 
from the poUtical interests, which entangle them together, with 
productions and wants which render our commerce and friendship 
useful to them and theirs to us, it cannot be the interest of any to 
assail us, nor ours to disturb them. We should be most unwise, 
indeed, were we to cast away the singular blessings of the position 
in which nature has placed us, the opportunity she has endowed 
us with of pursuing, at a distance from foreign contentions, the 



198 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

paths of industry, peace and happiness; of cultivating general 
friendsliip, and of bringing collisions of interest to the umpirage of 
reason rather than of force." 

I like those last words, which I have italicized. 
In one of his messages these words — so much too 
wise for Jingoes to comprehend — occur: — • 

"Our duty, therefore, is to act upon things as they are, and to 
make a reasonable provision for whatever they may be. Were 
armies to be raised whenever a speck of war is visible in our horizon, 
we should never have been without them. Our resources would 
have been exhausted on dangers, which would never have happened^ 
instead of being reserved for what is really to take place." 

It is popular to talk about our being ''an unready- 
nation," and about how much is added to the cost of 
war in life and treasure by the fact that we are never 
prepared for it; but those who talk thus forget the 
other side of the shield. If we are to be kept always 
prepared for war, then we are never prepared for the 
utmost possibilities of peace, and it is far better to 
strain our backs to an extra burden, now and then, when 
war is unavoidable, than it is to keep them burdened 
all the time. Every dollar which goes into war prep- 
aration goes out of peace progress; it is subtracted 
from public roads, popular education, internal improve- 
ments, good churches, clothes or food for the people — 
subtracted somewhere from industry or improvement. 
The real truth is, the constant drain pre-decreases our 
strength either for offensive or defensive war when it 
comes. 

Besides; being "always ready" is an ever-present 
temptation to make war wantonly. A nation thus 



INFLUENCE AS PRESIDENT 199 

"fixed" is like a man with a pistol — he wants to use 
it, to see if it is not rusty. 

Jefferson in one of his letters, says: ''I frankly 
confess that my passion is peace." And in another 
place he voices this utterance, by way of a sublime 
paraphrase: ''Let all the world pray to Heaven that at 
length there may be on earth peace and good will 
toward men." 

In connection with the designation by Mr. Theodore 
Roosevelt of the conduct of Jefferson and Madison in 
"not preparing for war," as "infamous conduct," 
Mr. Tom E. Watson is very happy. What he says is 
worth reading from every standpoint, and can be found 
on pages 445 and 446 of his "Life of Jefferson." 

Anent the Leopard-Chesapeake incident, Jefferson 
wrote: — 

"I had only to open my hands and let havoc loose. ... If 
ever I was gratified with the possession of power and of the confi- 
dence of those who intrusted me with it, it was on that occasion, 
when I was enabled to use both for the prevention of war, toward 
which the torrent of passion was directed almost irresistibly, and 
when not another person in the United States, less supported by 
authority and popular favor, could have resisted it," 

I think the best judgment will be that the early 
Presidents acted wisely in their " Peace-at-almost-any- 
Price" poUcy, in their avoidance of war till, like Topsy, 
we were "growed up" a Httle. It would not be many 
years before instead of accepting terms from others, we 
could impose them. So convinced was Jefferson of 
this that he was wary of all such treaties and agree- 
ments as were practically to be hoped for in his day. 

This sound reasoning and sentiment occur in a letter 



200 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

to his son-in-law, Jack Eppes, dated September 27, 
1811: — 

"I am so far, in that case, from believing that our reputation 
will be tarnished by our not having mixed in the mad contests of 
the rest of the world, that, setting aside the ravings of pepper-pot 
politicians, of whom there are enough in every age and country, I 
believe it will place us high in the scale of wisdom to have pre- 
served our country tranquil and prosperous during a contest which 
prostrated the honor, power, independence, laws, and property of 
every country on the other side of the Atlantic. Which of them 
have better preserved their honor? Has Spain, has Portugal, 
Italy, Switzerland, Holland, Prussia, Austria, the other German 
powers, Sweden, Denmark, or even Russia? And would we accept 
the infamy of France or England in exchange for our honest repu- 
tation, or the result of their enormities — despotism to the one, 
and bankruptcy and prostration to the other — in exchange for 
the prosperity, the freedom, and independence which we have 
preserved safely through the wreck?" 

There was ever present for Jefferson, and there is 
ever present for the true Jeffersonian since, a broad 
vision of world democracy and world peace. 

Henry Adams splendidly says : — 

"Jefferson aspired beyond the ambition of a nationality and 
embraced in his view the whole future of man. ... He wished to 
begin a new era. Hoping for a time when the world's ruling interest 
would cease to be local and should become imiversal ... he set 
himself to the task of governing with this golden age in view. Few 
men have dared to legislate, as though eternal peace were at hand, 
in a world torn by wars and convulsions and drowned in blood; but 
this was what Jefferson aspired to do. . . . As he conceived a true 
American policy; war was a blunder, an unnecessary risk; and 
even in case of robbery and aggression the United States, he be- 
lieved, had only to stand on the defensive in order to obtain justice 
in the end. He would not consent to build up a new nationality 
merely to create more armies and navies, to perpetuate the crimes 



INFLUENCE AS PRESIDENT 201 

and follies of Europe. The central Government at Washington 
should not be permitted to indulge in the miserable ambitions, 
that had made the Old World a hell, and frustrated the hopes of 
humanity." 

Shall we permit what Jefferson would not? Is the 
spirit of peace to continue permanently, as the in- 
dwelling soul of our body politic? 

2. "an empire for liberty" 

Jefferson, the repubUcan expansionist, had been all 
his life looking across the Blue Ridge from the planta- 
tion porch towards the Western country. During the 
Revolutionary war he realized the value of having 
possession of it. A Treaty of Peace would be based 
upon the principle of uti possidetis, and it was for this 
reason that George Rogers Clark, whom John Randolph 
of Roanoke subsequently called, in his high-flown style, 
the "Hannibal of the West," was sent to take possession 
of the northwestern country. Sufficient attention has 
never been paid by historians to the effect of the 
success of this movement upon the subsequent extent 
of our national domain. 

When Jefferson was Secretary of State in 1790, it 
looked at one time as if Great Britain were about to 
seize New Orleans. Jefferson advised President Wash- 
ington then, that the United States ought to go to war 
to prevent it. In the same year he gave a warning to 
France upon the same subject through the American 
Minister at Paris, saying that such an act would be 
regarded as unfriendly to the United States, and, in the 
long run, "not beneficial to France." Remember this 
was as early as 1790. 



202 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

Let us take up the story of Louisiana. 

The information came to America of the cession of 
Louisiana and the Floridas by Spain to France. In so 
far as the Floridas were concerned it was error, but if 
the reader will keep in his mind the fact that the news 
came that way it will unravel some tangles. At once, 
Mr. Jefferson wrote to Mr. Livingston, our Minister 
at Paris, a letter dated April 18, 1802, which was strong 
and uncompromising. 

In connection with the effort that has been made in 
some quarters to give an over-share of the credit of the 
purchase of Louisiana to Livingston, Mr. Morse is, 
at any rate, not deluded. He says in his "Life of 
Jefferson": — 

"Jefferson put on foot the movement for the purchase of 
Louisiana. . . . But that minister [meaning Livingston], before 
he had learned the executive purpose, had unfortunately expressed 
very different views of his own. He had told the French govern- 
ment that the United States cared not at all whether their neighbor 
at the mouth of the Mississippi was to be France or Spain, provided 
the right of navigation and privileges of deposit should not be 
interfered with. After correction, indeed, he began to discuss a 
purchase, and in time would probably have concluded it; but 
Jefferson, for many reasons, chose to send a special emissary." 

Even later Livingston wrote to Madison these 
words: — 

"I would rather have confined our views to smaller objects, 
and I think that if we succeed, it would be good policy to exchange 
the west bank [of the Mississippi] with Spain for the Floridas, 
reserving New Orleans." 

To this proposition Jefferson expressed his opposition, 
shrewdly believing that we would obtain Florida any- 



INFLUENCE AS PRESIDENT 203 

how, when the fruit was ripe; that is, whenever Spain in- 
volved in war would want or need to sell; and that the 
thing of chief value to us was the free and exclusive 
navigation of the Mississippi, which could not well 
consist with the possession by any power of territories 
upon its western bank, or even upon its western 
tributaries. 

As late as the afternoon of April 11, 1803, Talleyrand 
astounded Livingston with these words: "Does the 
United States wish the whole of Louisiana?" Livings- 
ton replied: ''No; we only want New Orleans and the 
Floridas." That evening Monroe arrived in Paris. 
He came with verbal instructions from the President, 
and the pathway for American negotiators was 
simplified. 

Jefferson had said: — 

"The day that France takes possession of New Orleans fixes the 
sentence which is to restrain her forever witliin her low water 
mark. It seals the union of two nations, who in conjunction can 
maintain exclusive possession of the ocean. From that moment 
we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation. . . . The 
first cannon, which shall be fired in Europe, [will be] the signal for 
tearing up any settlement she may have made, and for holding 
the two continents of America in sequestration for the common 
purposes of the united British and American nations." 

Professor Hart in his "Making the American 

Nation," says: — 

"Never in all his long and varied career did Jefferson's fox-like 
discretion stand him in better stead. Instead of following the 
public clamor, he calmly formulated a pohcy and carried it through 
to a most successful termination. 

"The first thing to do was to quiet the public mind; the second 
was to regain the right of deposit; the third was to steer a tortuous 



204 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

course between France and England and to take advantage of 
every possible opening to secure possession of New Orleans and 
the Gulf coast, and in this way to put an end forever to all chances 
of similar trouble in the future." 

If it had been anybody but Jefferson the adjective 
above would have been ''wise," not "tortuous." 

In the preface of a little book entitled "The Louisiana 
Purchase," by Winship and Wallace, I find this lan- 
guage:— 

"Little did either France or the United States dream, on that 
eventful last day of April, 1803, of all that lay in the sale by the 
one and the purchase by the other of the vast and unknown ter- 
ritory called Louisiana." 

If by that is meant that not many people in France, 
or in the United States dreamt all that it meant for the 
future, the statement is, of course, a truism. That is 
true, at the time of its happening, of almost any great 
transaction; but if it is meant that the men possessing 
the great guiding minds on both sides, Jefferson and 
Napoleon, did not fully realize why they did what they 
did, and what it all meant then and for the future, it 
is a great mistake. 

Napoleon knew that he had made up his mind to go 
to war with England again; that, if he did, the chances 
of his being able to retain Louisiana were one in ten; 
that even if the United States did not stir a foot. Great 
Britain, if earnestly intent upon it, could capture New 
Orleans and hold it, and that holding New Orleans and 
the mouths of the river, she would control the interior, 
at least as against France. But he knew more than 
that, for Jefferson had told him so, that the United 
States, in the event of his keeping Louisiana, must 



INFLUENCE AS PRESIDENT 205 

''marry themselves," to use Mr. Jefferson's language in 
the negotiations, *'to the British fleet and nation." He 
knew that Jefferson was only waiting, until the war 
broke out, for the co-operation of a British fleet, to 
turn loose the land-hungry and warlike frontiersmen of 
Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Mississippi Territory to 
seize the French possessions all the way down the river, 
including New Orleans. 

That Jefferson fully understood the importance of 
the entire matter is indicated by his language : — 

"Every eye in the United States is now fixed on the affairs of 
Louisiana. Perhaps nothing since the Revolutionary War has 
produced more uneasy sensations through the body of the nation." 

And this: — 

"The cession of Louisiana and the Floridas by Spain to France 
works most sorely on the United States. ... It completely reverses 
all the pohtical relations of the United States, and will form a new 
epoch in our political course. . . . There is on the globe one single 
spot, the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. 
It is New Orleans, through which the produce of three-eighths of 
our territory must pass to market, which from its fertiUty will ere 
long yield more than half of our whole produce, and contain more 
than half of our inhabitants. 

"France, placing herself in that door, assumes to us the attitude 
of defiance. Spain might have retained it quietly for years. Her 
pacific dispositions, her feeble state, would induce her to increase 
our facilities there, so that her possession of the place would be 
hardly felt by us. And it would not be very long, perhaps, when 
some circumstance might arise which might make the cession of it 
to us the price of something of more worth to her. 

"Not so can it ever be in the hands of France; the impetuosity 
of her temper, the energy and restlessness of her character, placed 
in a point of eternal friction with us, and our character, which is as 
high-minded, enterprising and energetic as that of any nation on 



206 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

earth, . . . render it impossible that France and the United States 
can long continue friends, when they meet in so irritable a position. 
They, as well as we, must be blind if they do not see this; and we 
must be very improvident if we do not begin to make arrangements 
on that hypothesis." 

As far as this particular great transaction was con- 
cerned, there were simply two parties to it: one, 
Napoleon the Great, and the other, Jefferson, the 
Seer — the see-er. 

When the treaty was signed Napoleon said: "A few 
lines of a treaty restored to me the Province of Louisiana 
and repaired the fault of the French negotiator, who 
abandoned it in 1763. But scarce have I recovered it 
when I must lose it again." (Italics are always mine.) 

It was a case of ''must," and Napoleon knew it. He 
realized fully what he was parting with. He also saw 
that, by its cession, he not only prevented a present 
alliance between these two English-speaking countries, 
but that he dealt a blow, which would, in the long run, 
possibly count very much against his arch enemy, 
England. 

The only reason why his prophecy about "our 
humbling Britain's pride on the ocean" has not come 
to pass is that we have grown to be such a stupendous 
people in resources and reserved power, that nobody 
wishes to challenge us to a contest. If there were 
the slightest need, we would be in conamand of the seas. 

Jefferson began to buy Louisiana without consulting 
Congress. Well does Mr. Bryce, in his "American 
Commonwealth," say: "This was the boldest step that 
a President of the United States has ever yet taken." 

The committee report, which recommended the legis- 
lation appropriating $2,000,000 declared that it was 



INFLUENCE AS PRESIDENT 207 

"to enable the executive to commence with more 
effect a negotiation with the French and Spanish 
Governments relative to the purchase from them of the 
Island of Orleans and of East and West Florida." 
Remember that it was at that time thought in America 
that New Orleans and East and West Florida were the 
lands ceded by Spain to France. 

Upon the question how far Jeffersoji had in con- 
templation the possibility of securing all of the Louisi- 
ana territory, there have been many words written. 
The truth seems to be that the minimum of his desire, 
without which an English alliance and war must be our 
recourse, was the city and island of Orleans, to which 
he would have preferred these plus East and West 
Florida, but that he would have preferred above all else 
the purchase of everything, which Spain had ceded to 
France, of the exact extent of which he was then ignorant. 
Further, to sum it up, it appears that Monroe was sent 
with only verbal instructions to join Livingston, ex- 
pressly in order that the American negotiators might be 
prepared for any contingency, which might present 
itself. 

Few men were quicker to take a hint of any descrip- 
tion than Napoleon the Great. No man ever lived 
who saw the end of a military, or naval, situation in 
advance, as completely as he. A man with a very much 
smaller military insight could have foreseen that while 
England remained the mistress of the seas, and the 
United States of America remained the mistress of their 
own land and, except for England, of their local waters, 
it would be impossible for him to land a single soldier at 



208 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

the mouth of the Mississippi river, or, if landed, after- 
wards to withdraw him. 

It has been frequently said that Napoleon ''by one 
of his sudden impulses, changed his whole policy," 
and concluded to sell Louisiana. Lucien Bonaparte, in 
his half-serious, half-humorous, description of the con- 
versation, which he and Joseph had with Napoleon, 
while the latter was in the bath tub, has spread this 
notion over the world. 

Napoleon never acted by ''sudden impulses." He 
sometimes pretended to do it. You may depend upon 
it that he traveled in thought all over this Louisiana 
question and found himself in a cul de sac, with no way 
out, except either the surrender of Louisiana in war, or 
its sale in peace. The only way he could have kept 
Louisiana was to have kept the peace. This he either 
could not do, or desired not to do. Hence, the moment 
he made up his mind to renew war with England, he 
wanted to sell Louisiana before he declared war and 
before his enemy could declare it. He even antedated 
the treaty. If he could sell it and get the money in his 
pocket, then he could leave England to do what she 
pleased — either acquiesce, or take on a new enemy. 

No great judge, or lawyer, nor any of Jefferson's 
friends, agreed with him in his doubt of the Consti- 
tutional right to acquire territory by treaty. Indeed, 
the sole contention even of the Federalists, in their 
subsequent effort to embarrass the administration was 
that Congress had no power to acquire territory "to be 
formed into States of the Union." 

The threats of dissolution of the Union made by the 
New Englanders were not based so much upon the 



INFLUENCE AS PRESIDENT 209 

ground of the acquisition of the territory, as on the 
declared intention of carving it up into States to be 
admitted to the Union, as a part of the governing power 
of the United States. The third article of the treaty of 
cession contained this language: — 

"The inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated 
into the union of the United States and admitted, as soon as possible, 
according to the principles of the Federal Constitution, to the en- 
joyment of all the rights, advantages and immunities of citizens 
of the United States." 

It was when that part of the Louisiana Territory, 
which we now call the State of Louisiana, knocked at 
the doors of Congress for admission as a State and nine 
years after the purchase, that Josiah Quincy made that 
noted speech, in which he said: — 

"I am compelled to declare it as my deliberate opinion, that if 
this bill passes, the bonds of tliis Union are virtually dissolved; 
that the states, which compose it, are free from their moral obliga- 
tions; and that as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty 
of some to prepare definitely for a separation; amicably, if they can; 
violently, if they must." 

. It is rather curious, and a good deal of an impeach- 
ment of Mr. Jefferson's usual clearness of thought, that 
he should have permitted the character of our Govern- 
ment with regard to domestic affairs and its character 
with regard to foreign affairs to become mixed in his 
mind. The States delegated to the general Government 
all the power they ever possessed with regard to foreign af- 
fairs, consequently reserved none. All "the powers not 
delegated" to the Federal Government "are reserved 
to the States, and to the people," but with regard to 
our relationship to foreign governments all power 
15 



210 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

having been delegated and, hence, none reserved, the 
Federal Government has every power, except such as 
may be expressly prohibited to it by the Constitution, 
or, ex necessitate rei, forbidden by our dual system of 
government. In other words, the Federal Government 
cannot, under the pretext of international relations, 
legislate by treaty upon State domestic affairs. For 
example, it can not by treaty dictate to the people of 
California the character, or management, of their public 
school system — not because the Federal Government 
has not every power with regard to international and 
foreign affairs, but because this is not an international, 
nor a foreign affair. 

Gallatin, Madison and all Jefferson's friends took the 
position that, with regard to foreign relations, the 
States were preeminently one; that the power of ac- 
quiring territory as a result of war, or as a means of 
settling international disputes had to reside somewhere; 
that as the States had delegated all power with regard 
to international relations, it must reside in the Federal 
Government; that, in conferring the treaty-making 
power, the fact that it had been conferred without any 
limitation 'prohibiting the acquisition of territory, was 
itself eloquent in behalf of their contention; that, 
although the treaty-making power could not amend, 
nor alter the Constitution of the United States, nor 
change our dual system of State and Federal Govern- 
ments, nor deprive any citizen of his protection under 
the constitutional bill of rights, nor do any other thing 
forbidden by the Constitution, it was yet unlimited, in 
the sense, that anything, not prohibited to the whole 
Federal Government, nor expressly and exclusively 



INFLUENCE AS PRESIDENT 211 

vested in some other branch of it, could be done by it 
under the treaty-making power. Not only had the 
States expressly delegated all the treaty-making power 
to the Federal Government, but that there might be no 
doubt about the fact that it was a complete and ex- 
clusive delegation of a full power, without residuum, 
they, in another clause of the Constitution, expressly 
prohibited to themselves all power to enter into leagues, 
or treaties. 

The position, however, which was taken by Madison, 
Gallatin and others, is totally different from that taken 
by a later administration with regard to the Philippines 
and Porto Rico. It was never contemplated by any 
of the men of that party, which added two-thirds of 
our domain to the Union, that any part of it, after 
acquisition, could be indefinitely governed in abso- 
lutism, as conquered territory. True, it was contended, 
that in ''a period of transition" between the moment of 
the ''cession" and the moment of the ''incorporation, 
according to the principles of our Constitution," the 
territory must be governed by Congress; and that in the 
interval between the cession and the date at which even 
a territorial government could be set on its feet, some 
government, de facto, must exist. 

This mistake of Mr. Jefferson's is all the more peculiar 
because it stands in its class alone. In every other 
respect, he seems to have appreciated fully, that, with 
regard to foreign affairs, the United States Government 
had plenary power, except in so far as Constitutional 
prohibitions and the very nature of our dual government 
constituted a limitation. In one sense, of course, no 
government, under the American theory, has absolutely 



212 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

plenary power, not even a State government — even 
over matters of internal police. All American govern- 
ments are limited by express prohibitions in State or 
Federal Constitutions. The Federal Government in 
regard to foreign relations is thus limited; but not by 
the operation of the reservation clause. The limitations 
on it, with regard to foreign affairs, are like the limita- 
tion upon State governments, with regard to domestic 
affairs. Mr. Jefferson himself, in another place, said, 
that the powers of the Federal Government were divided 
into two classes, foreign and domestic, and used this 
language: ''The States are independent as to everything 
within themselves, and united as to everything respecting 
foreign nations.'' Long prior to that, he had written 
from Paris, when we were about to form the new 
Constitution, that this was the principle upon which it 
should be framed. 

The recent Porto Rican and Philippine cases are not 
to be reconciled either with previous decisions, with one 
another, or with themselves. The De Lima case 
partially announces the old and theretofore accepted 
doctrine; the Downes case crawls out from under it. 

The Supreme Court, in the case of Cross vs. Harrison 
decided that, after the ratification of the treaty of 
Guadaloupe Hidalgo, California became a part of the 
United States, and a bare majority of the Court recently 
in the Downes case decided that, after the ratification 
of another treaty, Porto Rico did not become a part of 
the United States! The Court in the former case 
said that California ''became instantly bound and 
privileged by the laws which Congress had passed to 
raise a revenue from imports and tonnage " 



INFLUENCE AS PRESIDENT 213 

Justice Brown in the latter case declared that neither 
the Constitution nor the revenue laws extended over the 
island ex proyrio vigore, and not until Congress said so; in 
other words, that the Constitution of the United States 
— the fundamental voice of the people — prescribed 
and announced to control all functionaries created by it 
and subject to change only in the way designated in the 
body of it — is an overcoat, to be put on, or removed, 
by Congress to suit the weather at Washington. 

The idea in the Chief Justice's mind seems to be, 
that the old overcoat is not big enough, or otherwise 
does not fit, and that if the attempt is made to cover 
with it not only ''contiguous territory," but ''distant 
possessions," there is great danger of splitting it! 
Quite true, too. 

I am old-fashioned enough, however, or, as I would 
rather express it, have laic common sense enough, to 
believe that, if it is found that we cannot govern certain 
"distant possessions," with "ahen populations" in 
accordance with the Constitution of the United States 
(subject to which every possible functionary of the 
Federal Government everywhere must act), that one 
of three things ought to follow: either — warned by 
the fact — we ought not to annex them, or, having 
annexed them, we ought, under just and safe provision, 
to let them go, or else an amendment to the Consti- 
tution giving the powers necessary, in the cases desig- 
nated, should be asked. Queer idea this, that "the 
court should make concessions!" 

Justice Harlan, in his dissenting opinion, rises to the 
height of eloquent statesmanship. He announces that 
every branch of the Federal Government is "tethered 



214 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

by the Constitution," and that this is a government, 
which has no power, either at home or abroad, in the 
Territories, or in the States, or in ''appurtenances" or 
"appendages," or anywhere else, ''except such power 
as is derived from the Constitution," and that "inter- 
national law has not been so incorporated into our insti- 
tutions," as that "an agreement with a foreign nation 
can change, alter, or amend the Constitution." 

I haven't time to go into all this, but I wish the 
student would read the second chapter of Sidney 
Webster's httle book, "The Two Treaties of Paris," 
where the whole thing is set forth in its miraculous 
incomprehensibility, and its full enormity. 

Upon this question it is well to quote in this con- 
nection an excerpt from a letter written by Gouverneur 
Morris on December 4, 1803. It will be remembered 
that he was the chairman of the Conomittee on Style in 
the Constitutional Convention, and, therefore, the 
formal draftsman of the Constitution : — 

"I always thought that when we should acquire Canada and 
Louisiana, it would be proper to govern them as provinces and allow 
them no voice in our councils. In wording the third section of 
the fourth article I went as far as circumstances would permit me 
to establish the exclusion. Candor obliges me to add my behef, 
that, had it been more pointedly expressed, a strong opposition 
would have been made." 

This note shows that in Morris's opinion there was no 
doubt of the contemplation by the framers of the Con- 
stitution, at the very time of its adoption, of possible 
acquisition of foreign territory; Canada and even 
Louisiana, being in remote contemplation. It shows, 
moreover, that he himself, although in favor of govern- 



INFLUENCE AS PRESIDENT 215 

ing such territory merely "as provinces," was afraid 
to let this latter idea be known to the Constitutional 
Convention. In fact, under the Continental Congress, 
previous to the time of the adoption of the present 
Constitution, and at the time of its adoption, the Ameri- 
can people had in view the possibiUty that at some 
time the British American Provinces might want to be 
admitted into the Union. The hope has only recently 
disappeared since the British Canadian Provinces have 
developed into a great, prosperous, free and self- 
governing dominion, and have become perfectly recon- 
ciled, under their substantial autonomy, to the nominal 
rule of the mother country. 

Professor Hart says that, "Diplomatically, Jefferson, 
Livingston and Madison had achieved nothing; Louisi- 
ana had been thrown into their hands through no efforts 
of theirs." This is not a just thing to have written. It 
is true, they first thought all we could get was the city 
and so-called island at the mouth of the Mississippi, 
and, perhaps, West Florida, and began negotiating for 
that. But, if we could have purchased nothing but 
the Island of Orleans, including the City of New 
Orleans, still the upper part of the Louisiana Territory 
must necessarily have fallen into our hands. The 
French would have had no way of getting to it, or 
defending it, from the south except by our permission, 
or from the north except by England's permission. 
Talleyrand was right, when he said to Livingston that 
"without New Orleans, Louisiana itself would be of no 
use to France." _ 

By the acquisition of Louisiana, these great aims were 
attained: The exclusive navigation of the Mississippi, 



216 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

making it the great commercial artery of the country 
and an unshackled outlet for our produce; a vast 
territory, fitted by soil and climate for home-making for 
the sons and daughters of the Republic, became their 
heritage; potentially, and, in fact, almost immediately 
there accrued a large increase of the annual revenues; 
it effected the removal of possible enemies from im- 
mediate contiguity, minimizing the occasions for wars; 
it gave a guarantee of an extension of field for the 
development of American institutions, individual free- 
dom, and democratic laws. As Jefferson expressed it, 
it gave us ''a new empire for liberty," which, ''with our 
old," constituted such a domain, "as she had never 
witnessed." 

Senator Hoar said he never thought of Jefferson 
without seeing him ''with the Declaration of Independ- 
ence in one hand and the Louisiana treaty in the other." 

Curtis says: "It seems inexplicable that Jefferson 
did not include in his epitaph his acquisition of the 
Louisiana Territory." In this he shows a complete 
lack of comprehension of the character of the man. 
Nothing in the way of mere material acquisition was to 
a mind like Jefferson's a primary, or an eternal thing. 
To such a mind, acquisition of territory might be a 
means and very valuable, but not an end. Men are 
not made free, or happy, because of the area of the 
country in which they live. Territorial acquisition is a 
secondary and not a primary thing in the poHtical phi- 
losophy of a man like Jefferson — good only, if it 
extend "an empire for liberty." The acquisition of 
Louisiana was not "the greatest benefit that Jefferson 
ever conferred upon his country." The Jeffersonian 



INFLUENCE AS PRESIDENT 217 

spirit was. This Jeffersonian spirit was permanently 
embodied in our institutions, simultaneously with the 
defeat of the Counter-Revolution. 

Curtis declares that Jefferson was not the originator 
of the project of acquiring Louisiana, and says that as 
far back as the Revolution, the necessity of controlling 
the mouth of the Mississippi and its navigation had 
become apparent to many minds. In the same way, 
he might deprive Lincoln of the credit of emancipation, 
because as far back as the Revolution, and, indeed, 
prior to it, the idea that the temple of democracy would 
be more symmetrical and more enduring, if slavery 
were abolished, had "been apparent" to very many 
other minds also, to Jefferson's among others. Christ- 
opher Columbus was not the first man to dream of 
lands to the West, but he was the first man who "got 
there." 

The expansion advocated and effected by Jefferson 
and that advocated and effected by McKinley and the 
negotiators of the second Treaty of Paris cannot be 
compared. They must, in all respects, be contrasted. 

Jefferson annexed to the American domain vast areas 
of unpeopled lands, contiguous to American territory, 
the possession of which was essential to American de- 
fence, and which were fit for home-making by the sons 
and daughters of the American Republic. 

McKinley annexed distant possessions, densely popu- 
lated, destined at no time to become parts of the 
governing American people, and incapable of becoming 
so, without poisoning our body-politic by the infil- 
tration of alien and unassimilable blood, and requiring 
an increased naval and military force to hold them. 



UK' 

218 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

In the treaty bringing to us the Louisiana Territory, 
the United States stipulated that the inhabitants 
should be governed ''according to the principles of our 
Constitution," and should, ''as soon as possible," 
consistently with those principles, "be incorporated into 
the Union." Although the inhabitants of the ceded 
territory did not become immediately a part of the 
governing United States, they knew and were assured 
from the beginning that such was their destiny, and 
they secured in advance, as soon as territorial govern- 
ment could be organized, the full individual protection 
of every article of the Federal Constitution. 

On the contrary, the second Treaty of Paris, which 
brought to us the Phihppines, contained the language 
that "the civil rights and political status of the native 
inhabitants of the territory hereby ceded to the United 
States should be determined by Congress." Instead 
therefore of the inhabitants obtaining the nationality 
of citizens of the United States, they obtained that of 
Porto Ricans and Filipinos. 

When Congress passed its first act for the government 
of Louisiana, it is true that it vested in persons to be 
appointed by the President all powers of government, 
but it was with this ever-memorable limitation upon the 
character of those powers and the exercise of them; 
that they were to be exercised "for maintaining and 
protecting the inhabitants of Louisiana in the free 
enjoyment of their liberty, property and religion." 

Sidney Webster, in his "Two Treaties of Paris and 
The Supreme Court," says: — 

"Congress thereby enacted, in effect, that the former Spanish 
and French laws — excepting always, and of course, those for- 



INFLUENCE AS PRESIDENT 219 

bidden by our Constitution — should be the laws of the new ac- 
quisition till Congress make others. Jefferson was commanded to 
supervise the execution of the enactment." 

Under the new dispensation, the Spooner Amend- 
ment of March, 1901, is very much broader. The 
language of it is: ''AH military, civil and judicial 
powers, necessary to govern the Phihppines, shall be 
vested in such person and persons, to be appointed by 
the President, and to be exercised in such manner as 
the President shall direct." "It contains no limitations 
at all upon the governing powers of the President's 
appointees, except his direction," and no limitation 
upon him, except that the "powers" shall "be necessary 
to govern the Philippines." The language of the 
enactment in Jefferson's time might have been repeated. 
It was purposely not repeated. 

The cardinal difference is that the Spooner Amend- 
ment did not recognize (in fact, those who voted for it 
denied), that the inhabitants of the Philippines, or of 
Porto Rico, received, by the fact of their coming under 
the American flag and becoming subject to American 
sovereignty, any Constitutional protection whatsoever. 
Indeed the advocates of the McKinley species of 
"dependency" and " appurtenancy " government were 
much disturbed by the opinion long before given by 
John Marshall in the case of Loughborough vs. Blake, 
to the effect that the phrase "throughout the United 
States," "designated our great repubhc, composed of 
States and Territories." The course pursued by the 
United States, with regard to the Louisiana Territory, 
under the treaty with France, and that with regard to 
the Florida Territory, under the treaty with Spain in 



220 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

1819, and that with regard to the territory acquired 
from Mexico, as a result of the treaty of Guadalupe 
Hidalgo, were essentially the same, although the lan- 
guage of the treaties differed somewhat. But in every 
instance the intent and purpose and promise — the 
only purpose consistent with American institutional 
and constitutional ideas — was preserved, to wit : That 
the people of the acquired territory should not be 
indefinitely governed in absolutism without their own 
consent, but should at some time become a part of the 
governing United States. 

Pitt the elder — Earl of Chatham — the "Empire 
Builder," in a speech in Parliament, once said: — 

"From all the history of the European world since the later 
days of the Roman RepubUc, there is no more important lesson to 
be learned than this, — that it is impossible for a Jree people to 
govern a dependent people despotically, without endangering its 
own freedom." 

I have always been endeared to this utterance and it 
has been the guiding star of my own walk from the mo- 
ment that the United States undertook to ''go a' world- 
powering" with purposes of "benevolent assimilation" 
in the Philippine Archipelago for a pretext. 

It was in January, 1802, that Jefferson sent his 
message to Congress proposing the exploration of the 
Western country to the Pacific Ocean. This resulted 
in the Clark and Lewis exploration, which gave us our 
firmest basis for claim of title to the Oregon country. 
It will be noted that this was before the cession of 
Louisiana and not afterwards. Nor was the exploration 
to be confined to the Louisiana territory. As a matter 
of fact, it went far beyond it, to the Pacific Ocean. 



INFLUENCE AS PRESIDENT 221 

Thus Thomas Jefferson not only gave us Louisiana 
by purchase, but gave us the claim, by exploration and 
discovery, to the Oregon country, which carried our 
boundary to the Pacific and made us truly Continental. 

Jefferson's vision was broad. He saw, as no other 
man of his time saw, the importance of adding to the 
territory of the United States contiguous lands fit for 
homes for the sons and daughters of the people and for 
European immigrants. He saw its importance as a 
safety valve socially and politically, for us and for the 
white race in Europe, and its importance as a part of 
his great Peace PoUcy. It is not strange, therefore, 
that the annexation of Louisiana was not the limit of 
his endeavor, but that during his entire administration 
he was engaged in attempting to secure the Floridas by 
negotiation and purchase. Had it not been for John 
Randolph's venom in delaying Congressional action, 
until it was too late, we probably would have secured 
Florida under his administration by a process as peace- 
ful and noiseless, as the one by which he had secured 
Louisiana. At least General Armstrong, our Minister 
at Paris, thought and said so. 

Even in his retirement at Monticello, he was still 
thinking of the expansion of our domain, and in one of 
his letters to the President, April 27, 1809, he discloses 
what his limit as an expansionist was: The Continent 
with Canada plus Cuba and there a stone to be set up 
inscribed "ne plus ultraJ' 

Of course he then thought the Canadians would be 
more than willing. 

Still, the thing desired by him is never mere domain — 
mere dkt; — it is "an empire for liberty"! That is 



222 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

Jeffersonian-democratic-expansion. If there be any 
spot over which expansion does not give more room for 
Hberty, let us none of it. There, the very air stains our 
flag. 

There were many, who apprehended menace to our 
institutions from the magnitude of our territory. In 
this connection, read Jefferson's language in his second 
inaugural address : — 

"I know that the acquisition of Louisiana has been disapproved 
of by some, from a candid apprehension that the enlargement of our 
territory would endanger its Union. But who can hmit the extent 
to which the federative principle may operate effectively? The 
larger our associations, the less it will be shaken by local passions." 

The following expression occurs in a letter to De 
Marbois : — 

"Contrary to the principal of Montesquieu, it will be seen that 
the larger the extent of a country the more firm its Republican 
structure, if founded not on conquest, but in principles of compact 
and equality." 

That is, of course, under a Federal system. 

He held that possessing the West would hold the 
Union together, cementing the North and South more 
nearly together, because it would be inhabited by the 
children of both. It has had that effect. Even 
Missouri and Kentucky, though slave States, failed to 
secede. Indiana and lUinois, settled mainly by South- 
erners, sent their sons to the front to maintain the 
Union. It is not too much to say that the chief material 
consideration actuating them was a desire to preserve 
the free navigation of the Mississippi River; to permit 
it to "flow free and unf retted to the sea." Without 



INFLUENCE AS PRESIDENT 223 

the weight of the Middle West in the scale, we of the 
South would have won our independence with ease. 

I do not think the wise student of history will doubt 
the proposition, that even if the Southern States had 
succeeded in maintaining a separate and independent 
confederacy, another war would before long have been 
necessary to settle disputes between the Northern and 
Southern Confederacies, growing out of the navigation 
of the Ohio, and Mississippi — certainly if the South 
had asserted the sole right of navigation of the lower 
Mississippi, which, from the very nature of things, it 
probably would have done. 

Jefferson had drawn up in 1784 the draft, whose pro- 
vision — establishing our policy of holding our terri- 
tories under self-governing Congressional guardianship, 
while being educated for statehood — was later em- 
bodied in the ordinance for the government of the 
Northwest Territory. This great provision riveted on 
our institutions forever that policy, of governing 
territories — whether old or newly acquired — which 
we pursued to the end of the Spanish War. Out of the 
Louisiana Territory were carved twelve great States. 
When, later, territory was acquired as a result of the 
Mexican War, the question as to the relationship it 
and States already in the Union held to one another 
was so well settled, that it was not even questioned, 
and out of that territory other States were carved. 

Jefferson was right; it is hard, if not impossible, to 
conceive of any Hmit to the area of country, which 
can be governed under a Federal model, provided: first, 
that the Central government leave the federated states 
full self-government in domestic affairs, and second. 



224 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

that the Federal government itself have power to tax 
individuals and strength to defend the self-governing 
states from all foreign foes, and third, that the popu- 
lations of the states be homogeneous in language, 
race, and love of liberty. When I say homogeneous in 
race, I mean that all shall be of the white or Caucasian 
race. 

It seems to us right odd now to imagine a Federal 
Repubhc of Anglo-Saxony composed of England, Scot- 
land, Wales and Ireland, and the several self-governing, 
English-speaking British Colonies, Quebec, Ontario, 
New Zealand, etc., and the several American States, 
each a sovereign state in the Federal Union. This 
sort of thing did not seem so strange in our early 
colonial history to Englishmen and some Americans. 
Fiske, in his ''American Revolution," says truthfully 
that in England such a scheme was favorably re- 
garded by Adam Smith, and in America by James Otis 
and Benjamin Franklin. He might have added that 
Pitt the elder had something like it in his head. It 
may be, at some time in the remote future, that such a 
scheme may yet evolve itself; minus a King, minus a 
Federal House of Lords, minus an Established National 
Church — in short with substantially an American 
Federal Republican Constitution — perhaps with a re- 
sponsible British Ministry, and responsible opposition 
system — constituting real parliamentary govern- 
ment, quickly responsive to election returns — which 
we unfortunately do not now have, as a new graft 
on our system. If so, there would never be another 
war on the high seas, and navies would be needed 
chiefly to do ocean poUce service. Qui sail? 



INFLUENCE AS PRESIDENT 225 

3. JEFFERSONIAN SIMPLICITY 

Jeffersonian simplicity grew out of the idea that 
officials are public servants and should be accessible to 
the citizen; that there should be no oriental mystery 
about republican office holders — who are to be of the 
people in, as well as out of, office. 

Parton wrote an article, entitled "Jefferson's Return 
from France in 1789," which appeared in the November 
number of the Atlantic Monthly of the year 1872. 

He says that while in France as Ambassador, Jeffer- 
son's "family soup," as he himself called it, played a 
great part: "He lived in the easy, liberal style of 
Virginia, that harmonized as well with the humor of the 
time, as with his own character and habits." It was 
this easy, liberal style of Virginia that Jefferson hoped 
afterwards to make permanent in the White House. 

When Jefferson reached New York on March 21, 
1790, if he read the Gazette of the United States, pub- 
lished the day before, he was probably not a little 
astonished to find what follows : — 

"There must be some adventitious properties infused into the 
government to give it energy and spirit, or the selfish, turbulent 
passions of men can never be controlled. This has occasioned that 
artificial splendor and dignity, that are to be found in the courts 
of so many nations. So7ne admiration and respect must be excited 
towards public officers, by their holding a real or supposed superiority 
over the mass of the people. . . . Avarice and ambition increase 
with population; and in a large, opulent community the dazzhng 
appendages and pompous formahties of courts are introduced to 
form a balance to the increasing ardor of the selfish passions, and 
to check that ascendancy which aspiring individuals would other- 
wise gain over the public peace and authority." 
16 



226 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

When this same paper gave an account of the arrival 
of Mrs. Washington in New York on May 30, 1789, the 
attempt to imitate ''British Court society" entries 
was almost childhke in its simplicity. There were 
noticedaspresent ''Lady Sterling," ''Lady Mary Watts," 
"Lady Kitty Duer," besides Lady Washington, etc. 
When the President attended his birthday balls — 
themselves imitations of the Court of St. James — "a 
platform was reared at one end of the ballroom, a sort 
of dais, and upon this was a sofa," where dear, plain old 
George Washington of Mount Vernon plantation was 
persuaded to sit ''reclined" with his "consort"! 

This foolish movement — looking towards the estab- 
lishment of pomps and ceremonies, cavalcadings, forms 
and frills of office in America, meant under the surface 
much more then than we are inclined to think now. 
The Senate wanted to call the President: "His High- 
ness, George Washington, President of the United States 
and Protector of their liberties." The House very 
wisely resolved that he should be called simply "George 
Washington, President of the United States," and Jef- 
ferson very keenly sympathized with the action of the 
House. This, in the view of his enemies, is his first 
display of "disloyalty" to George Washington, and a 
betrayal of "French influence"; but the Presidents 
have ever since then been called plainly, "Mr. Presi- 
dent," and no harm has come of it. Mr. Jefferson 
himself enjoys the rare distinction of having been 
generally called simply Mr. Jefferson. He wrote to 
Madison on August 28th and said : — 

"In every instance, the new government has ushered itself into 
the world as honest, masculine, and dignified. It has shown 



INFLUENCE AS PRESIDENT 227 

genuine dignity, in my opinion, in exploding adulatory titles; they 
are the offerings of abject baseness, and nourish that degrading vice 
in the people." 

I have thought that one of the exquisitely humorous 
things in our history proceeded from Senator Grayson, 
of Virginia, when, the Senators, being in a state of 
worry about proper titles to be given our high officials, 
he suggested that the President should be called 
"His Limpid Highness," and more exquisitely still, 
that the Vice-President should be called "His Super- 
fluous Excellency " ! 

Washington wore a sword at his inauguration and at 
his receptions, and carried a cocked hat in his hand, so 
that nobody could feel encouraged to shake hands. It 
is needless to say that shaking hands was then, as now, 
the American way of expressing both cordiality and 
equality of intercourse. It looks childish now that men 
should have quarreled about these things, but it was 
not unreasonable that those who wanted to democratize 
American institutions in that day should have regarded 
them with suspicion. "Give a fool an inch and he 
will take an ell." Especially a " sas-si-e-ty " fool. The 
democrats knew that ; and they knew the weight which 
would be carried in the popular imagination by con- 
ventional ceremonies, if they became stereotyped. 
Jefferson knew, as Napoleon did, that "the world is 
governed by imagination." The latter knew that 
republican simplicity must be sacrificed, if he was to 
be a real emperor; the former that it must be retained, 
if we were to have a real democracy. "Jeffersonian 
simplicity" consisted in divorcing officialdom from 
forms, ceremonies, and assumptions of superiority, 



228 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

and in abolishing "mysteries" of administration. 
Hence, when Secretary of State, he continued, on the 
social side of his life, his "family soups," and on the 
official side, introduced in the State Department that 
admirable simplicity and directness, which has con- 
tributed so immensely to our weight and influence in 
intercourse with other nations. 

When he resigned the office of Secretary of State and 
left Philadelphia, he and Washington were on the frank 
and friendly terms that Virginia country gentlemen and 
neighbors love best to stand upon. Some of his enemies 
have attempted to attack the sincerity of his professions 
of attachment to the President, expressed in contem- 
poraneous letters to his friends, and in his daily conver- 
sations, by calling attention to entries in other letters 
and in his Ana making fun of certain foolish forms 
and ceremonies, throne elevations, sword-by-side and 
cocked-hat-under-arm receptions, etc. I do not think 
any impartial man could doubt my sincerity of attach- 
ment to another, because I did not see fit to revere his 
forms and ceremonies — in this particular case, forms 
and ceremonies, which even St. Beuve stamps as part 
of a ^'frenesie quasi monarchique.'' 

EarUer in his life, when about to take his seat as 
Vice-President, Jefferson had illustrated his dislike of 
pubHc scenes. He wrote to Senator Taswell of Vir- 
ginia, saying that he had heard that on the former 
elections of President and Vice-President, "gentlemen 
of considerable office were sent to notify the parties 
chosen," and expressed the hope that in his case "the 
Senate would adopt that form of notification which 
would always be least troublesome and most certain," 
the post office. 



INFLUENCE AS PRESIDENT 229 

Mr. Tucker records that so consistent was Jefferson 
in his disUke of empty titles, that his visiting cards 
never contained anything else except the words 
''Thomas Jefferson," no matter what office he was 
holding. 

He announced in substance, when he became Presi- 
dent, that he would receive people at the White House 
just as he would receive them at Monticello — just 
as a man of good breeding may receive them any- 
where — on the twin principles of absolute "equality 
among guests," and above all, of ''place aux dames.'' 

He attempted to introduce republican simplicity 
into the official life of Washington. There was found 
among his papers at his death one marked, ''Etiquette," 
worth reading, I think, both because it is curious and 
because it is in the main sound. This had been com- 
municated to his Cabinet, and formed the rule of con- 
duct of his administration. 

No administration since Jefferson came in has dared 
to depart from the precedent of simpficity, which he 
set in sending a written message to Congress, to which 
no reply was expected. None has ever dared to 
attempt to restore the "speeches from the throne" ^^^ 
made by Washington and Adams. Presidents now 
shake hands at receptions with their guests, as Jefferson 
did, and do not stand up "girded with the sword of ^'- 

State," with cocked hats under their arms, as snobs 
persuaded honest, modest, noble George Washington i : n 
to do. Presidents now, with their wives, "stand upon •^^'?/^^ 
the level" at White House receptions, and not on "a 
raised dais." "Sassiety" did not conquer as long as 
Jefferson himself was at the helm. It made up its 

tf>3 



\ 



230 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

mind that he should not do away with levees, so its 
pretty and fashionable women gathered themselves 
together — and went, upon one of the regular levee 
days, to the White House, with a view of forcing the 
President's hand — he being known to be a polite man, 
and especially polite to the ladies. They found, how- 
ever, that the wise old fox had gone horseback riding. 
They determined to await his return. The Master of 
Monticello came back, riding boots on, somewhat soiled 
with dust, and politely desirous "not to keep them 
waiting/' came in just as he was. He fulsomely ex- 
pressed his dehght and surprise to find them there • — 
his happiness in the contemplation of the ''coincidence" 
of their presence and his return ! He greeted everybody 
kindly, and as each made motion to go, he urged each 
further to remain. The women could not help heartily 
laughing at themselves, and never attempted to repeat 
the performance. They came to capture or to ridicule. 
They left captured or feeling ridiculed. 

The Republicans were more rejoiced at Jefferson's 
abolition of pomp, ceremonies, parade, and cavalcades, 
than they were in consequence of many other more 
important things. The Federalists viewed what they 
called ''a Jacobin wreck" with alarm and despair! 
Little things that seem to us now, with the glamor of 
the past about them, interesting, if not beautiful, 
meant more then than they would mean now, and would 
have grown, by now, to mean more than they did then. 
Adams, unfortunately, did not see what Jefferson did, 
that George Washington constituted a whole class by 
himself. 

In a chapter headed "Jeffersonian Simphcity," 



INFLUENCE AS PRESIDENT 231 

evidently put in quotation marks with a view of 
ridiculing the subject matter and Jefferson, Curtis 
opens: ''The inauguration of Jefferson as President of 
the United States was attended with as much pomp and 
ceremony as the conditions would permit." I submit 
that this is beneath the dignity of history. If the state- 
ment had been true, it would not have made much 
difference; but it is not true. Jefferson carefully 
eschewed all pomp and ceremony, and did it for a 
purpose — the purpose of demolishing the "frenesie 
quasi monarchiqueJ' He walked from his boarding 
house, which was on New Jersey Avenue- north, and 
not far from the Capitol, and a few friends, among them 
some Senators and Representatives, accompanied him 
to the Senate room to be sworn in. It is idle to say 
that he could not have ridden in his own coach, sent 
up from Monticello, or in any sort of a state coach he 
might have fancied to have built. It is equally idle 
to say that he could not have had a thousand men on 
horseback, if he had wanted them. 

Curtis very properly exposes the story of Jefferson's 
going to the Capitol on horseback, and "tying his horse 
to the fence." This was not true for three reasons, first, 
because the distance was too short to make it necessary 
to have his horse, and, secondly, because from the best 
information I can get there was no fence there at that 
time, and third because a good horseman — and Jeffer- 
son was about the best — would not hitch his horse to 
a fence, if he could find a swinging limb, or even a 
hitching post under a shed. 

After Jefferson had taken the oath, he went back to 
his boarding house, taking his old seat, and decHning 



232 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

amid laughing protest to go to the head of the table. 
He stayed there several days before he went to Monti- 
cello. He rode meantime freely and unattended around 
Washington. Afterwards, when President, if he wanted 
to see a Senator or a Member of Congress, he rode up 
to the Capitol and saw him — hitching his horse under 
one of the construction sheds on the uncompleted House 
wing side of the Capitol; hence, perhaps by confusion, 
the horse was given him at the inauguration. 

Jeffersonian simplicity was a real thing and not a 
thing to be put in quotation marks. 

His ''democratic simpUcity," as. Curtis calls it, was' 
not "affectation," as he stigmatizes it. Jefferson was 
trying to teach a useful lesson to office holders in a 
Republic — to show that a plain man, who was elected 
President had nothing to do except to go on being just 
what he had been — a plain man — a man, "for a' 
that." It was the very contrary of affectation. He 
saw no reason why he should "affect" something new •. 
to him and therefore unnatural, just because he had ' 
been elected President. The people had'nt sent him I 
to Washington to "put on airs." 

It is said that his conduct was affected and insincere, 
because when Minister to France he had "lived in 
great elegance," and "knew better than any man in 
America, perhaps, the habits of European courts." 
It was for that very reason, that he recurred to simple 
habits, and it proves no inconsistency. Every man of 
common sense "when in Rome does as Rome does," 
and when Jefferson was Minister to France, he, of 
course, was not rustic enough not to comply, upon state 
occasions, with Parisian court customs. 



INFLUENCE AS PRESIDENT 233 

When ht was President of these United States, he 
was the court ! 

It would have been just as absurd for him to have 
permitted his conduct, as chief magistrate in America, 
to be guided by the usages of the court of France, as 
to have permitted his conduct in France to be guided 
by ''the common usages of American gentlemen." 

Curtis says that "He abandoned the courtly deport- 
ment for which he had previously been noted, and 
adopted manners that were offensive to people of refined 
taste." If by ''courtly deportment" is meant courtesy 
and genial good breeding, he never abandoned it. The 
manners which he carried into the White House, being 
the manners of "Monticello" and "Gunston Hall" 
and "Brandon" and "Mount Vernon" and "Rose- 
mont," were not offensive, and could not have been 
offensive to anybody, except snobs. 

Possibly Jefferson intended that they should he offensive 
to them. Perhaps, he was not entirely without intent 
to rebuke the tinsel FederaHst "Upper-Ten," which 
had grown to imagine that it ruled the roast in Washing- 
ton. Curtis got his ideas from reading the letters 
written by the left-over Federalists in Washington — 
men and women — who were trying to decry democ- 
racy, and render it ridiculous and offensive. Some 
of these criticisms were brought to Jefferson's ears, and 
had the effect only of making him emphasize what he 
was already doing, and maybe sometimes over-empha- 
size it. Under his administration, the White House 
was open to all comers under the same conditions as 
his house on "Little Mountain" had been and would be 
later — subject to the master of the house not being 



234 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

engaged and the guest behaving decently. Although 
his receiving a British Ambassador ''in slippers run 
down at the heels" was certainly too careless, it was, 
after all, a small matter, and I don't see yet why so 
much noise was made about it. Jefferson was Jefferson 
and President of the United States, whether he was in 
boots, shoes or slippers, and provided he was polite and 
courteous to the Ambassador, it was none of the 
Ambassador's business how he was dressed — if only 
within statutory limits, and certainly not a state affair. 

As President, he himself at public functions asserted 
no precedence over governors of States, nor, for that 
matter, over anybody else who happened to be present. 
A governor having once written him to know what the 
etiquette would be when they should meet, he replied: 
"My dear Sir, there will be no etiquette." The 
President's residence was no longer called ''The 
Palace." 

Unfortunately, these troublesome, expensive in- 
augural processions that Jefferson thought to do away 
with, have gradually come back to plague us! It is 
to be hoped that some strong, wise man on being elected 
President will do away with them. They do no good 
and result generally in several deaths from pneumonia 
caused by exposure to the weather. They are, at best, 
an "idle foolish parade" — a weak imitation of 
"coronation" proceedings — resulting in nothing of 
any benefit to anybody, except a temporary increase of 
revenues to Washington hotels and boarding-houses 
and saloon keepers and street cars. 

Jefferson did not want the image of a President 
impressed on the coinage. He did not want birthdays 



INFLUENCE AS PRESIDENT 235 

celebrated, and never would permit his own to be 
celebrated, where he could help it. 

He seemed to be afraid of the effects of hero-worship 
of any description. It is the great danger of a democ- 
racy. It will remain so until the end of time. Men 
ought to be taught more and more to reverence laws 
and institutions and less and less to reverence offices 
and men. 

I shall quote from page 122 of Merwin's ''Thomas 
Jefferson": — 

"The ascendancy of Jefferson and the Republican party pro- 
duced a great change in the government and in national feeling, but 
it was a change, the most important part of which was intangible, 
and is therefore hard to describe. It was such a change as takes 
place in the career of an individual when he shakes off some con- 
trolhng force, and sets up in Hfe for himself. The common people 
felt an independence, a pride, an elan, wliich sent a thrill of vigor 
through every department of industry and adventure. 

"The simplicihj of the forms which President Jefferson adopted 
were a symbol to the national imagination of the change which had 
taken place. ..." 

Now for substantial results of Jeffersonian simplicity 
in the public business. There must be, to use the words 
of his Inaugural Address, "a wise and frugal govern- 
ment." It behooved him first then to simphfy our 
bookkeeping and to unmystify our finances — to render 
all plain of comprehension to the people. It was their 
right, because it was their money. Let us then instruct 
our Secretary of the Treasury. 

Jefferson's letter to Gallatin, of April 1, 1801, inaugu- 
rating this reformation, is condensed by Professor 
Tucker as follows: — 



236 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

"On the 1st of April, 1801, Mr. Jefferson addressed a letter to 
him on this subject, in which, after approving the secretary's plan 
of having one aggregate fund from which every thing was to be paid, 
he further suggests that all the money in the treasury should form 
a consolidated mass, from which the whole expenditure should be 
paid, and should have preference in the following order — 1. The 
interest of the pubUc debt. 2. Such parts of the principal as the 
creditors had a right to demand. 3. The expenses of the govern- 
ment. 4. Such parts of the debt as the government had the right 
of paying. To this he proposes that degree of clearness and sim- 
plicity in the accounts that every inteUigent man in the Union could 
readily understand them, and detect abuses. 'Our predecessors,' 
he remarks, 'have endeavored, by intricacies of system, and shuf- 
fling over the investigation from one oflBcer to another, to cover 
everj^hing from detection. I hope we shall go in the contrary 
direction, and that by our honest and judicious reformations, we 
may be able, witliin the hmits of our time, to bring things back to 
that simple and intellectual system on which they should have 
been organized at first.'" 

As soon as possible, on Gallatin's recommendation, 
Jefferson authorized the sale of the United States Bank 
stock, owned by the government. The money was put 
into the sinking fund. Thus begins the dissolution of 
the marriage between the monied element and the 
government, so carefully solemnized by the Federahsts. 

''Now let us adjust our income and expenditures to 
one another!" He recommended the abolition of 
internal taxes, which shocked the Federahsts — not 
believing that he could carry on the government with- 
out them, because they had said that they were neces- 
sary. Congress obeyed his wish, and did abolish the 
internal taxes, and we did get along without them, with 
a larger annual surplus and a larger annual payment 
on the pubhc debt than had been found possible under 
his predecessor. 



INFLUENCE AS PRESIDENT 237 

Further pursuing his simpUfication of government, 
he urged the abohtion of unnecessary offices, thereby- 
decreasing the patronage at his disposal and, at a time, 
when a new and hungry party was coming into power. 
He promised later to lay before Congress a list of 
superfluous offices. This he did, and over one-fourth 
of the former Executive patronage was aboHshed. 

The policy of making appropriations in ''lump sums," 
as it has been called, he reprobated, because it carried 
no information to the citizens concerning the precise 
purpose for which the money was to be spent, and he 
suggested that wherever possible the purpose of the 
appropriation of each dollar be specifically stated in 
the law appropriating it. He recommended provisions 
which would prevent executive officers from deflecting 
amounts appropriated for one purpose to another, or 
devoting amounts appropriated in lump sum to unex- 
pected purposes, which was really the evil struck at. 
To a surprising extent this evil was corrected by 
that Congress. He recommended placing the duty of 
accounting for all the public money in one department. 
This recommendation prevailed and is in use today: 
^'Auditors in the Treasury Department for the Post 
Office Department" and ''for" other departments 
being the instrumentality through which it is done. 

While he was a candidate for the Presidency, the 
Federalists had everywhere said that he would repudi- 
ate the public debt. The truth is, he wanted to pay it 
off as rapidly as possible and Hamilton did not want 
unduly to hasten this process, because the outstanding 
debt "interested" the monied classes in the "stabil- 
ity" of the government, and thereby "strengthened" 



238 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

it. Jefferson proceeded at once to pay off the debt and 
continued its payment to its extinction, once more 
falsifying the predictions of his enemies. 

I think I may safely say that this has become a 
cardinal doctrine with the party which he founded 
and has ever since been professed as such by its leaders, 
even when temporarily varied from in practice. Cleve- 
land's first administration, 1884-88, furnished an 
example, almost equal to Jefferson's, of the theory and 
its observance. 

Under Jefferson's and Gallatin's thoroughly simple 
and comprehensible management, the difficulty of 
purchasing an imperial domain, and at the same time 
meeting the interest and all payable principal of the 
public debt, was managed hand in hand with the 
abolition of some old taxes and without levying a 
single new tax or increasing an old one. It was man- 
aged upon the Jeffersonian principle of providing for 
the interest and the sinking fund, so that the debt 
might be completely satisfied within the life of a gener- 
ation. 

Professor Albert Bushnell Hart does not seem to be 
one of those who accept, without any sufficient reason 
for it, the legend that our present treasury system comes 
over from Hamilton. The truth is, that there was a 
marked revolution even in the method of keeping the 
books, and in the whole policy of the Treasury, when 
Gallatin went in as Jefferson's Secretary. Professor 
Hart well says : — 

"The system established by Gallatin remains to this day, and 
is undoubtedly one of the most perfect organizations of a great 
financial machine, which can be found anywhere in the world." 



INFLUENCE AS PRESIDENT 239 

SOME MINOR MATTERS 

Coinage System 

Jefferson is the father of our coinage system. More 
justly described, his was a scheme of coinage, weights 
and measures, because the cardinal idea of it was the 
decimal system, appHed equally to all three. In it he 
recommended the pendulum as a standard of measure. 
Or, if this was difficult in practice, a measure taken at 
latitude 45°, corresponding to it. He reinforced his 
selection of latitude 45° as the place of measuring his 
uniform cylindrical rod, as being a place ''upon which 
the nations of both hemispheres might unite." 

He shattered Robert Morris's proposed unit of value 
scheme, and succeeded in having substituted for it 
his own. It is the very simple and remarkably satis- 
factory system which we have now. His common 
sense suggested at once that the Spanish milled dollar, 
which ''circulated more with us than any other coin," 
should be taken as the basis for both division and 
multipUcation. This was the Spanish "Piece of 
Eight," i. e., eight bits, a bit being one-eighth of a 
dollar. The phrase "two-bits," meaning twenty-five 
cents, and "four-bits," meaning fifty cents, and" six- 
bits," meaning seventy-five cents, are still in use in the 
South, and I have seen old bookkeepers indicate on 
their books "eight bits" instead of a dollar. 

Indians 

In his time as Secretary of State he also had the 
duties of the present Secretary of the Interior. In this 
capacity, Jefferson deUvered a Cabinet opinion in which 



240 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

he assumed the position that the Federal Government 
alone possessed the right of acquiring title to Indian 
lands from the Indian tribes, and that this should be 
done by treaty. This became a settled policy of the 
Government, and until within the last few years, we 
treated the Indian tribes as a sort of subordinated 
foreign powers, ceding us their lands by solemn treaty. 

Apportionment 

Under Washington's administration the ratio of one 
representative to every thirty thousand inhabitants 
was fixed, but when the bill for the first apportionment 
of Representatives in Congress passed instead of 
applying the ratio to each State, it was applied to the 
population of the entire country. Jefferson gave the 
President a Cabinet opinion to the effect that this 
violated the true intent of the Constitution, and 
urged an executive veto. The President agreed with 
Jefferson, notwithstanding Hamilton's opinion to the 
contrary, and vetoed the bill. The House then passed 
the bill, applying the ratio to the population of each 
State separately, and this has become the permanent 
custom after every succeeding census. 

Power o) Congress over Interstate Commerce 

On February 28, 1803, Congress passed a law "pro- 
hibiting the importation of any negro, mulatto, or 
other person of color into any State where, by the laws 
thereof, their admission is prohibited," and affixing 
penalties for the violation of the act. Jefferson signed 
the act. This is curious and valuable right now, inas- 



INFLUENCE AS PRESIDENT 241 

much as it furnishes a precedent for a bill, now pending 
in Congress, to prohibit the importation of alcoholic 
stimulants into any State, where, "by the laws thereof," 
their sale is prohibited. 

This Jeffersonian precedent is of high permanent 
value. Congress should not obstruct, but should 
cooperate with the States, when exercising their police 
powers for the protection of public health, or public 
morals, whenever Congress thinks the end, sought by 
the State, not violative of natural right, nor of national 
policy. 

Electoral College 

Jefferson advocated a constitutional amendment 
which would enable Presidents to be elected by a 
direct vote of the people, thus abolishing the electoral 
college, the people, however, voting in each State as 
citizens of the State, each State's vote counting to the 
extent of the sum of its Senators plus its Represen- 
tatives. That amendment ought to be passed now. 
Some day we shall have trouble in the electoral college 
because of some elector's not keeping faith and voting 
as his constituents have voted. There is no law to 
prevent him. There is no legal penalty to which he 
would be subjected. There is only a pledge on honor 
— sometimes even that is only impliedly made. 

Freedom of the Press 
In his second inaugural address, after referring to 
the Hcentiousness of the press and to the calumnies 
and slander, etc., he announces what was his, and what 
ought forever to remain, the permanent pohcy of the 
Repubhc, by asking: — 
17 



242 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

"Whether freedom of discussion, unaided by power, was not 
sufficient for the propagation and protection of truth — whether 
a government conducting itself in the true spirit of its constitution, 
with zeal and purity, and doing no acts which it would be unwilling 
the whole world should witness — can be written down by falsehood 
and defamation." 

He proudly refers to the fact that the Federahst 
experiment to throttle and suppress free speech and 
printing had been tried and failed, and to the result 
of the Republican experiment of the contrary theory 
which ''had been honorable to those who served 
them, and consolatory to the friends of man, who 
beUeved he might be intrusted with his own affairs." 
You will agree that he was justified in this paean of 
self -congratulation. He had kept the same faith in 
office that he had preached when out of it, though 
everybody knew that he had suffered more from the 
license of the press than any man, who has ever been 
prominent in American history, and suffered because 
he was not the victim of the hatred of individuals, but 
of classes. 

SUMMING UP 

Meanwhile his administration had paid off thirty- 
three millions of the pubhc debt, which had been 
somewhat increasing before he came in; it had reduced 
taxes very much; it had reduced patronage, thereby 
simplifying the Government a great deal, and had 
added to the national domain the vast area of the 
Louisiana Territory, and put down Burr's conspiracy 
without war or bloodshed; so adeptly that the Federal- 
ists were beginning to deny that there ever had been 
a conspiracy at all; it had laid the foundations for the 



INFLUENCE AS PRESIDENT 243 

future successful contention for the possession of the 
Oregon country; it had benefited its own conunerce and 
that of the civihzed world by putting down the Barbary 
powers; it had kept the peace amid untold difficulties 
and with unspeakable benefit; it had captured the 
common sense and imagination of the country; it had 
destroyed quasi-monarchical forms, ceremonials, caval- 
cadings and ''demnition nonsense" generally; it had 
given a practical illustration of the fact that govern- 
ment can be carried on successfully without tying to 
itself the monied, or any other special interest, and that 
it could be carried on by those, who regarded it as a 
pubhc trust; he had given practical demonstration of 
the fact that a democracy is not irresponsible or 
dangerous, and that restraints upon freedom of speech 
and of the press are not necessary to make a govern- 
ment strong; he had put the example of George Wash- 
ington in declining a third term upon a basis of reason 
and general principle, destined to appeal for all time to 
the American people, and although his embargo poUcy 
had pressed hard upon the navigating States, the 
pressure had been no harder, nor the dissatisfaction 
any greater, than war would have brought in its train, 
as was afterwards demonstrated. 



CHAPTER VII 

JEFFERSON'S INFLUENCE ON FREEDOM OF RELIGION 
IN AMERICA 

In connection with his devotion to the cause of 
freedom of reUgion and speech, and to the idea that 
government ought not to attempt to stifle the expression 
of opinion, but that church and state should be separate, 
this is worth quoting from Jefferson's ''Notes on 
Virginia": — 

"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty 
gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." 
... "It is error alone which needs the support of government. 
Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion and whom 
will ye make your inquisitors? Falhble men, governed by bad 
passions, by private as well as pubhc reasons. And why subject 
it to coercion? Difference of opinion is advantageous to religion. 
The several sects perform the office of censor morum over each other. 
Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women and 
children since the introduction of Christianity have been burnt, 
tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch 
towards uniformity. Let us reflect that the earth is inhabited by 
thousands of millions of people; that these profess probably a 
thousand different systems of religion; that ours is but one of the 
thousand; that if there be but one right, and ours be that one, we 
should wish to see the nine hundred and ninety-nine wandering 
sects gathered into the fold of truth. But, against such a majority, 
we cannot effect this by force. Reason and persuasion are the only 
practicable instruments. To make way for these, free inquiry 
must be indulged by them; and how can we wish others to indulge it, 
while we refuse it ourselves? " 

244 



ON FREEDOM OF RELIGION 245 

Such utterances as these form no small part of the 
permanent influence of Thomas Jefferson upon Ameri- 
can ''Church and State" thought. Nothing in Mil- 
ton's "License of PubUc Printing" is more eloquent. 
Scarcely anything in Victor Hugo is more short- 
sentence-pithy. It was a decade probably after this 
utterance before he had stamped its essence upon the 
statute books of Virginia in the first written statute 
that the world ever knew, granting not toleration 
only, but absolute freedom of religion, and not only to 
all sects of Christians, but to all people. 

Again Jefferson wrote: — 

" I never will by any word or act bow to the shrine of intolerance, 
or admit a right of inquiry into the rehgious opinions of others. 
On the contrary, we are bound — you and I, and everyone — to 
make common cause, even with error itself, in order to maintain 
the common right of freedom of conscience. . . . For tliis reason, 
were my opinions up to the standard of those who arrogate the 
right to question me, I would not countenance that arrogance by 
descending to explain." 

Jefferson's views about the church are not more radi- 
cal than those of Emerson. As the editor of the New 
England Magazine says : — 

"The curious thing about it all is that the pulpit fulminated as 
it did against Jefferson and let Adams alone, for as Parton truth- 
fully says, 'there was not a pin to choose between the heterodoxy 
of the two candidates.' " 

Why the difference? The answer is obvious. Jeffer- 
son legislated disestablishment and the loss to the 
clergy of glebes and salaries. John Adams never did 
though he once said with a spirit of hate that Jefferson 
never felt and therefore never indulged in: ''Until this 



246 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

awful blasphemy [the doctrine of the Trinity] be got 
rid of there will never be any liberal science in the 
world." But it was not until 1834 that church and 
state were completely divorced in Massachusetts. 

Having, as I have shown in a previous chapter, dealt 
a great blow in Virginia for the freedom of the land and 
for freedom of social life from special privilege and 
incumbrance, Jefferson next dealt one in favor of 
freedom of faith and worship. He was a member of 
the standing committee of the Virginia House on 
religion, a committee which was directed to ''meet and 
adjourn from day to day, and take under their con- 
sideration all matters and things relating to rehgion and 
morality, with power to send for persons, papers and 
records." Upon this committee, as in the House of 
Delegates itself, the established church of Virginia 
predominated. Jefferson here began his resolute work 
for the declaration of the principles, which were after- 
wards expressed by him in the Bill for Religious Free- 
dom, throwing off the domination of the church in 
Virginia, as the bills for the abolition of primogeniture 
and entail had thrown off the domination of the great 
families. 

The curious inquirer may read what Jefferson says in 
his " Memoir " and in his " Notes on Virginia " on this 
subject; how the church had shown at once intolerance 
and incompetency, how the laws had been adapted to 
the purposes of the church by making heresy a capital 
offence, punishable by burning, and by very many 
other less, but oppressive penalties. Happily for 
Virginia, these laws were more honored in the breach 
than in the observance. The history of the slow and 



ON FREEDOM OF RELIGION 247 

gradual steps by which ecclesiastical influence in state 
affairs and political influence in church affairs were 
destroyed in Virginia is very interesting and it will pay 
any student to make a special study of it. It was a 
step-by-step performance, leading up through a series 
of years to the gradual chmax, which was the Bill for 
Religious Freedom, concerning the authorship of which 
Jefferson took so much pride, that he had it inscribed 
on his tomb, as one of the three things, because of which 
he wanted to be remembered. 

Under the Virginia Act of Assembly of 1705, if a 
person brought up in the Christian rehgion denied the 
being of a God, or denied the Trinity, or denied the 
Christian religion to be true, or denied the Scriptures 
to be of Divine authority, he was punishable, first, by 
deprivation of the right to hold office or employment; 
on the second offense, by disability to sue or to inherit, 
or to take any gift or legacy, etc., and by three years' 
imprisonment without bail. If the offender were a 
father, he was deprived of the right of the custody of 
his own children. The first step was to repeal the laws, 
which rendered criminal the maintenance of any 
religious opinions, or the failure to attend church, or 
the exercise of any mode of worship except that of the 
established church. The next was to exempt dis- 
senters from contributions to the support of the 
established church. The next was to suspend levies 
on the members even of the established church for the 
salaries of their own ministers; but this last was limited 
in its operation until the next session of the House of 
Delegates. Jefferson's opponents, however, on No- 
vember 19th, passed a declaration asserting that 



248 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

"assemblies ought to be regulated," and that "legal 
provision ought to be made for the succession of the 
clergy, and for superintending their conduct;" in other 
words, a legal declaration of the wisdom and righteous- 
ness of a qualified union of church and state. Per- 
mission was later secured for any person paying an 
assessment for the support of the clergy to designate a 
pastor of his choice, even though not a member of the 
Established Church, to whom his proportion of the 
assessment should go. 

On the 15th the House agreed that the compulsory 
levies to support the established clergy should again 
be suspended for another session. 

Thus, toe to toe, the pulling match continued — 
the disciples of liberty now losing, now gaining ground. 
Up to the time Jefferson left the Virginia Legislature, 
he had not yet accomplished his full purpose. He left 
his statute for Religious Freedom on strong ground, 
as a legislative legacy to his friends, and they finally 
won it. The law as it appears upon the statute books 
of the State of Virginia is not word for word as it was 
drawn by Jefferson. The changes were verbal. The 
words of the bill, as given in the "Notes on Virginia," 
are not the words of the original, but of the bill as 
amended, and as it was passed by the General As- 
sembly. The original bill may be found in Randall's 
"Life of Jefferson," volume 1, pages 219 and 220, with 
the parts which the Legislature of Virginia struck out 
in italics, and the parts which they added in brackets, 
and some alterations placed in the margin. I will 
excerpt a part only of this great instrument, with 
the italics, brackets and marginal notes which go 
with it: — 



ON FREEDOM OF RELIGION 249 

"A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom. 

"Well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on 
their own free will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to 
their minds; that Almighty God had created the mind free, and 
manifested His supreme will that free it shall remain by making it 
altogether insusceptible of restraint; that all attempts to influence 
it by temporal punishments or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, 
tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a de- 
parture from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion, who being 
Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by 
coercions on either, as was in His Almighty power to do, but to 
extend its influence on reason alone; that the impious presumption 
of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who being 
themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion 
over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of 
thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring 
to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false 
rehgions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time; 
that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the 
propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful 
and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support tliis or that 
teacher of his own rehgious persuasion, is depriving him of the com- 
fortable Uberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor, 
whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels 
most persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the 
ministry those temporary rewards, which proceeding from an ap- temporal 
probation of their personal conduct, are an additional incitement to 
earnest and unremitting labors for the instruction of manldnd; 
that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, 
any more than on our opinions in physics or geometry; that, there- 
fore, the proscribing any citizen, as unworthy the public confidence, 
by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to (the) offices 
of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that 
religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and 
advantages to which, in common with his fellow-citizens, he has a 
natural right; that it tends also to corrupt the principles of that very 
religion, it is meant to encourage, by bribing, ^vith a monopoly of 
worldly honors and emoluments, those who will externally profess 



250 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 



Be it therefore 

enacted by the 

General 

Assembly 



the power 



and conform to it; that though indeed those are criminal, who do 
not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent, 
who lay the bait in their way; that the opinions of men are not the 
object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction; that to suffer the 
civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and 
to restrain the profession or propagation of principles, on (the) 
supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy, which at once 
destroys all rehgious hberty, because he being of course judge of 
that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and 
approve or condemn the sentiments of others, only as they shall 
square with, or differ from, his own; that it is time enough for the 
rightful purposes of civil government for its officers to interfere, 
when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good 
order; and, finally, that truth is great and will prevail, if left to 
herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, 
and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human inter- 
position disarmed of her natural weapons — free argument and 
debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely 
to contradict them. 

"We, the General Assembly, do enact, That no man shall be 
compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place or 
ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, 
or burthened in liis body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on 
account of his religious opinions or behef; but that all men shall 
be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions 
in matters of rehgion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, 
enlarge, or affect their civil capacities. 

"And though we know well that this Assembly, elected by the 
people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no power 
to restrain the acts of succeeding Assembhes, constituted with 
powers equal to their own, and that therefore to declare this act 
irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, 
and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural 
rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to 
repeal the present act, or to narrow its operation, such act will be an 
infringement of natural right." 



"Natural right" again; the "things of the first 
table!" 



ON FREEDOM OF RELIGION 251 

Jefferson judged himself, as he did other men, wisely, 
when he selected, as one of the three things to be 
remembered about him, and to be cut into the granite 
of his tombstone, that he was ''The author of the 
Virginia Statute for Rehgious Freedom." It was the 
first of its kind, for though the charter of Rhode 
Island proclaimed in most absolute terms, the principle 
of religious liberty, the same law declared this law not 
applicable to Roman Catholics. Maryland had been 
for a long time the only asylum in the British Empire 
where the principle of religious toleration was estab- 
lished. It was established there by the Roman Cath- 
olics, and the reason is not far to seek. They were 
seeking some place in the Empire where they could 
unpenalized profess their faith, and, being in a religious 
minority, they were compelled to grant the same 
liberty to others. But even in Maryland the principle 
of religious liberty applied only to those, who believed 
in the Divinity of Christ. 

The next step in Jefferson's reform process dis- 
closes his trait of ''taking things by the smooth handle," 
while never sacrificing the essential end. The church 
having been disestablished and freedom of religion — 
not mere toleration, but freedom — having been 
secured, it remained to do justice to the old church in 
the case, hence his bill, entitled "A Bill for Saving the 
Property of the Church, heretofore by Law established," 
and providing that the glebes, church belongings, 
furniture, arrearages of debt due the church, and all 
church property of every description, which had come 
to it hy private donation, "should be saved in all time to 
come to the members of the Enghsh church," resident 



252 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

in the parish, where the property was situated, and 
reciting that it could be used by them, as they chose, 
in support of their clergymen. This did justice, 
observed the sanctity of the property relation, while 
not mihtating at all against the principle of a total 
separation of church and state, and entire freedom of 
religious opinion and practice. The bill also provided 
that certain surplusage, accruing out of the fact that 
former levies had exceeded the law, should be restored 
to the public by being put into the poor rates of the 
parish, but even in this case, in order to be generous 
to the defeated antagonists, it was provided, that if 
the parish had no glebe, this surplus was to be apphed 
to the purchase of a glebe. 

In 1784 the friends of the church rallied again and 
made an effort to pass, as an amendment, a bill en- 
titled: "A Bill to Establish a Provision for Teachers of 
the Christian Rehgion," by a levy of a general assess- 
ment for that purpose. To show how far their strength 
had been broken, however, this bill allowed each person 
to direct the payment of his own contribution to the 
church of his choice. The struggle against the reaction 
was fierce, but George Mason and George Nicholas and 
James Madison, in the absence of their chief, stood their 
ground and conquered, notwithstanding the strength 
of the churches, the landed aristocracy, and the in- 
fluence of such great names as George Washington, 
Richard Henry Lee, and others. 

George Washington, on October 3, 1785, wrote to 
George Mason : — 

"Although no man's sentiments are more opposed to any kind 
of restraint upon religious principles than mine are, yet I confess 



ON FREEDOM OF RELIGION 253 

I am not among the number of those, who are so much alarmed at 
the thought of making people pay towards the support of that which 
they profess." 

This shows that Washington had not yet learned the 
lurking danger in any connection whatsoever between 
church and state, nor the great truth that men's 
religious opinions are things between them and God, 
and that the support of churches ought to rest upon the 
voluntary contributions of those who profess their faith. 

Richard Henry Lee, on November 26, 1784, wrote to 
James Madison this rather remarkable protest against 
what I suppose he considered ''theory" and radical- 
ism: — 

"Refiners may weave reason into as fine a web as they please, 
but the experience of all time shows rehgion to be the guardian of 
morals; and he must be a very inattentive observer in our country, 
who does not see that avarice is accomplisliing the destruction of 
religion for want of a legal obligation to contribute something for 
its support." 

In other words, there could be no motive for the non- 
contribution to a church except avarice, and this 
irreligious motive should be overcome by state com- 
pulsion. Madison and Mason secured a delay in the 
proposed legislation until the next session, giving as 
their reason a desire to submit the question to the 
people, thus proposing a sort of referendum. Madison 
then appealed to the people in a written argument, 
unanswered because unanswerable, and at the next 
session, in 1786, the proposed assessment, which was 
to have gone along with Jefferson's statute for religious 
freedom, was abandoned as hopeless, and the bill for 
Rehgious Freedom passed, with the amendments, 



254 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

which I shall now indicate. You will see from exami- 
nation that the Legislature struck out this language of 
Jefferson's original draft, to wit: ''that the opinions 
and belief of men depend not on their own will, but 
follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their 
minds." I rather think they did well, because al- 
though with a perfectly unbiased and open mind, the 
statement is true; yet it is also true, that, in most 
cases, an opinion is the result as much of prejudice and 
environment, or heredity, or an inclination to reach a 
certain conclusion, as it is of evidence. 

Jefferson's original draft read in the next sub-sen- 
tence: ''that Almighty God had created the mind free," 
and then there followed this language, which the Legis- 
lature also struck out: "and manifested His supreme 
will, that free it should remain by making it altogether 
insusceptible of restraint." In this respect, the Legis- 
lature seems to have been fighting a truism. It is 
impossible to conceive of any way in which the human 
mind can be restrained. Human utterance may be; 
human conduct may be. A man may be forced by 
law to bottle up his opinion in his own mind, but the 
opinion itself cannot be restrained against his conviction 
and will. 

Jefferson next recited, that God had chosen not to 
propagate religion by coercion either of body or mind 
"as was in His Almighty power to do." Then follow 
these words in Jefferson's draft, stricken out by the 
Legislature: "but to extend its influence on reason 
alone." In striking this out the Legislature likewise 
acted wisely, because the assertion begged the very 
question at issue. All people beheving in the Divinity 



ON FREEDOM OF RELIGION 255 

of Jesus believed that the influence of rehgion was 
extended by the grace of God, as well as by the reason 
of man. 

As John T. Morse says in another connection, 
"Jefferson's pen sometimes ran away with him." 
Whose does not? In the next sentence to which I 
shall call attention it undoubtedly did so. He said 
in the original draft that "to compel a man to furnish 
contributions of money for the propagation of opinions, 
which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." 
The Legislature struck out the words "and abhors," 
and thereby strengthened the statute. It is not 
necessary that a man should abhor a religion, in order 
that the conclusion should be rightfully reached, that 
he ought not to be forced to contribute to it. It is 
sufficient that he disbeUeves in it. It is sufficient, in 
fact, whether he beheves in it or not, that he simply 
does not choose to contribute. 

The Legislature was indefensible in striking out the 
next phrase to which I am going to call attention. 
They showed by striking it out that they had not yet 
risen to the full level of the philosophy of freedom of 
religion, and were still staggering around in the quag- 
mire of rehgious toleration. The phrase to which I 
refer is this: "that the opinions of men are not the 
object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction." 
If there be a self-evident truth in the world this is one. 

But it was exceedingly fortunate that the bill should 
have passed even as it was, nor was its strength materi- 
ally weakened by the passage of these motions to strike 
out, nor by the several non-essential substitutions and 
additions, which were really only three. 



256 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

First the substitution of the word ''temporal" for 
the word "temporary" in the sentence, "withdrawing 
from the ministry those temporal rewards." The word 
was the accustomed one, and its substitution was an 
improvement. 

The next substitution was striking out the words, 
"We, the General Assembly, do enact," and substi- 
tuting for them, "Be it therefore enacted by the General 
Assembly." 

The third was to substitute the words "the power" 
for the word "powers." 

The most remarkable thing about this statute consists 
in the closing clause of it, where the attempt is made to 
forestall and prevent any repeal of it by future legis- 
latures, although acknowledging their power to repeal, 
and confessing inability to restrain the exercise of that 
power. The clause accomplished its end, however. 
It was ever afterwards considered in Virginia, that the 
assertion in the concluding words of the enactment, to 
wit: "We do declare that the rights hereby asserted 
are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any 
act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present, or 
to narrow its operation, such an act will be an infringe- 
ment of natural right," were binding. 

It is not too much to say that an overwhelming 
majority of the American people are prepared to main- 
tain by bloodshed, if needful, that any act of any legis- 
lature, state or national, attempting to interfere with 
the absolute freedom of religious opinion and of reUgious 
worship is an infringement of a natural right, and that 
the state has no power over the matter; that it is not 
under its jurisdiction, except when overt acts injurious 



ON FREEDOM OF RELIGION 257 

to the state, or to a person, or to property occur, as a 
consequence of religious belief, and then that it is the 
act which is to be punished, or restrained, and not the 
beUef. 

Not only did Jefferson's enemies accuse him of taking 
political views from France, but religious views, too. 
This is absurd to anybody who knows the history of 
the man's life. His religious views were entertained 
by him, when he was a young man at William and Mary 
College. They were shared by George Wythe, his good 
friend and law teacher, and partially shared, I am 
inclined to believe, by his much esteemed and beloved 
Professor of Mathematics. His statute for the Estab- 
hshment of Religious Freedom was drawn by him years 
before he went to France. The French encyclopedists 
were, for the most part, unqualified atheists, and when 
not, were purely materialistic agnostics. Jefferson was 
a devout believer in the existence and the providence of 
God, and in a future state. I have sometimes thought 
that he was more nearly a Christian in his belief than 
any man who has lived since Christ. His Unitarianism 
was a reverential and a cautious, as well as a rational, 
belief. It was not the ''sneering, leering" belief of 
Voltaire, which necessarily led to "a divorce of life 
from morals," nor Gibbon's "solemn mocking of a 
solemn creed" with a solemn sneer. Jefferson was 
afterwards charged with being an atheist, principally 
by the Calvinistic and Congregational priests, because 
they did not see any difference between a denial of the 
Divinity of Christ and atheism. 

I have said that his behef was not only reverential, 
but that it was cautious. He seemed to have a sensi- 
18 



258 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

tive fear of intermeddling with the religious belief of 
other people, even with that of his own children. In 
fact, his children and his grandchildren did not know 
until after he was dead, that he had prepared the so- 
called ''Jefferson Bible." He was always most careful 
not to be a propagandist, but to insist that every man's 
belief should be formed, as his own had been, inde- 
pendently and on one's own dread responsibility, "not 
for the rightfulness, but for the righteousness of it." 
His beliefs were expressed in a few confidential letters 
to Priestley and Adams, and others, who entertained 
the same opinions, and, in one or two cases, they were 
expressed to Dr. Franklin, who likewise entertained 
them, but, in a cannier way, kept them to himself. 
These letters, for the most part, were not published 
until after his death. Many of his friends thought that 
his grandson made a mistake in pubhshing them, and I 
have an idea that Jefferson would have thought so 
himself. However, he left his letters and documents to 
his grandson, without limiting the authority to use 
them, as he chose. 

The hatred, calumny and lies — scurrillous and cruel 
— visited on his devoted head for the balance of his 
life on account of the Disestablishment in Virginia, and 
because of the anger and fear arising from the justly 
anticipated imitation of his legislation elsewhere, are 
wondrous. During his campaign for the Presidency 
there was positively no end to the bitter denunciation. 
It was charged by one preacher in New England that 
Jefferson had "obtained his property by fraud and 
robbery;" that in one instance he had "defrauded and 
robbed a widow and fatherless children," of whose 



ON FREEDOM OF RELIGION 259 

estate he was executor, "of ten thousand pounds 
sterling, by keeping the property and paying them in 
money at the nominal rate, when it was worth no more 
than forty for one," and this stupendous lie was closed 
with the assertion that the reverend gentleman "could 
prove it"! 

The New England clergy seem to have adopted him 
as a favorite text. One, Doctor Mason, declared that 
Mazzei had once told a Reverend Mr. Smith, who had 
told him, that Jefferson had said of a ruined church: 
"It is good enough for him who was born in a manger." 
Dr. Mason also charged that Jefferson was solicitous 
"to wrest the Bible from the hand of the people's 
children." 

In a letter to Dr. Rush, Jefferson said that the clergy 
believed that any portion of power confided in him, 
Jefferson, would be exerted in opposition to all church 
establishment schemes. Then he adds: — 

"And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of 
God eternal hostiUty against every form of tyranny over the mind 
of man. But this is all they have to fear from me; and enough, 
too, in their opinion. And this is the cause of their printing lying 
pamphlets against me, forging conversations for me with Mazzei, 
Bishop Madison, etc." 

The man's superb moral courage was shown in the 
fact that he dared, on coming into power as President, 
to remember to keep a promise to Thomas Paine made 
in consequence of his services to the cause of liberty 
in America during the American Revolution, notwith- 
standing the intense and almost universal hatred of 
Paine which had grown out of his notorious anti-reli- 
gious views. Paine was then in France, where he had 
been cooperating with the French revolutionists, and 



260 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

where, by the way, be it remembered to his credit, he 
had had the courage and the good sense to vote against 
the king, when that was dangerous, and against the 
death decree pronounced upon the king, when to do 
that was yet more dangerous. He was in prison and 
would have reached the guillotine, had not Robespiere 
reached it first. He wanted to return to America, was 
afraid that the British cruisers might take him off a 
merchant ship, and had therefore asked that he be per- 
mitted passage on board a national vessel. Jefferson 
wrote to him : — 

"You expressed a wish to get a passage to this country in a 
public vessel. Mr. Dawson is charged with orders to the captain of 
the Maryland to receive and accommodate you with a passage back, 
if you can be ready to depart at such short warning." 

In another part of the letter he says : — 

"I am in hopes you will find us returned generally to sentiments 
worthy of former times. In these it will be your glory to have 
steadily labored, and with as much effect as any man hving. That 
you may long live to continue your useful labors, and to reap their 
reward in the thankfulness of nations, is my sincere prayer." 

Men who have denounced Mr. Jefferson for thus 
affording the asylum of a war vessel to Mr. Paine, 
because Paine was an atheist, as they say, in almost the 
next breath pronounce him to be a man of gross 'Himid- 
ity" in the face of public opinion, and to be a per- 
sistent ''demagogue seeking popularity"! The two 
things do not well fit into one character. Jefferson 
must have been the greatest fool in the world if he had 
not known, and as a matter of fact, he did know, that 
this letter to Paine and this passage on a war vessel 



ON FREEDOM OF RELIGION 261 

extended to him, would raise a storm of popular dis- 
approval, and unchain once more the satanic fury of 
the theologians and of a great many good people. Not- 
withstanding it all, Jefferson remembered Paine's 
services to the cause of liberty in America, and his 
manly stand at the risk of his neck in France. Not 
only that, but when Paine had come, Jefferson enter- 
tained him with Virginian hospitality at Monticello, 
and this was while the storm was blowing. 

The degree to which the New England clergy hated 
Jefferson, and the measure in which he returned their 
hate, coupled with some contempt, were extraordinary. 
It was no wonder they hated him. First, he was of 
the opposite party. Secondly, there was jealousy of 
the rule of ''the Virginia Dynasty"; New England pride 
was aroused. Third, he was not orthodox in religion. 
Fourth, he carried his lack of orthodoxy in Virginia to 
the point of separating the church from the state, the 
church being as yet, ''established" and in the enjoy- 
ment of valuable special privileges throughout all New 
England, except in Rhode Island. Fifth, his known 
sympathies with the French people constituted him a 
"blood-thirsty Jacobin." They neither asked, nor 
gave quarter. They had their flocks in such condition 
that when Jefferson was elected President, it produced 
a sort of panic among many good people. 

John Fiske says that he "has heard his grandmother 
tell how old ladies in Connecticut, at the news of his 
election, hid their family Bibles, because it was sup- 
posed that his very first official act — perhaps even 
before announcing his cabinet — would be to issue a 
ukase ordering all copies of the sacred volume through- 



262 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

out the country to be seized and burned. '^ And this 
simply because Jefferson was a conspicuous advocate of 
freedom of rehgion, or perhaps still more because he had 
disconnected parsons from glebes and state support — 
much to the improvement of true religion. He was, as 
it was the habit to call men in that day, a "freethinker." 
It is wonderful how many good, honest folk think they 
are thinking when they think they think that thinking 
freely is a sin, and ought to be made a crime. Fiske 
well adds that "when people get into such a state of 
mind, the only thing that can cure them is an object 
lesson." 

In connection with the hatred of the clergy and 
preachers generally for Mr. Jefferson, growing out of 
his disestabUshment of the church in Virginia, and the 
welcome which that measure had met with, and the 
imitation of it elsewhere, it is well for the student to 
remember that the support of public worship was com- 
pulsory in Massachusetts, except in a few exempt cities, 
as late as the year 1833. We are apt to forget facts 
like this now, and to forget that Dr. Childs, of Berk- 
shire County, attempted unsuccessfully in the Massa- 
chusetts Convention of 1820 to free himself, and others, 
of this unjust burden. Some honest people denounced 
Jefferson, as "an atheist," because he was a Unitarian, 
or rather because — not being orthodox — he might 
be anything. Being God's vice-gerents in this world, 
they proceeded to destroy God's enemy, and especially 
this Philistine and Amalekite. They did not stop with 
attacking his political and rehgious views. They lent 
ears of easy credulity to every charge, rumor, or insinu- 
ation against his private character. They preached 



ON FREEDOM OF RELIGION 263 

from the pulpit that he was an adulterer, a miscegenist, 
a demagogue, a liar, a hypocrite, and a coward. Not- 
withstanding all this. New England, little by little, 
slipped from under their control. A broad, tolerant, 
and free administration, a ''wise and frugal govern- 
ment," little by little, sapped the strength of New 
England Federalists, whose natural leaders were the 
clergy. The object lesson to which Fiske referred was 
taught and learned. 

I don't know whether Jefferson was greatest as a 
political manager, as so many people say and write, or 
not, but that he was great in this role, is undeniable. 
He won men over and held them not by corrupting 
them with patronage, nor by tying them to his ad- 
ministration through their monied interest, or class 
interest, nor by extending to anybody any special priv- 
ileges, nor by any rod held over them, but by "taking 
things by the smooth handle," while appeahng to the 
reason and common sense of all. Thus he rendered 
hurtless the arrows of intolerance and hatred which fell 
upon the shield of his honest intent. The odium 
theologicum was itself partially disarmed in reconcili- 
ation before his death. 

James Parton in his article entitled ''Jefferson a 
Reformer of old Virginia," in the Atlantic Monthly, 
of July, 1872, says: — 

"We have come now to regard liberty of belief very much as we 
do liberty of breathing — as a right too natural, too obvious, to 
be called in question — forgetting all the ages of effort and of 
anguish which it cost to rescue the human mind from the domination 
of its natural foes." 

It is for this reason that we are not apt to estimate 



264 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

at its full value Jefferson's efforts, and his final triumph 
in obtaining the enactment of the Virginia statute of 
Religious Freedom. ''No man ever more effectively- 
put the case in favor of freedom of worship and freedom 
of opinion." "Logic, irony, good-natured appeal, were 
all combined." The reader will find a good deal of it 
in the ''Notes on Virginia," being a recital for the world 
of the arguments that had been used so effectively in 
the Virginia Assembly. 

Jefferson later followed up the work in this cause 
performed in his State, by insisting that the United 
States Constitution should be amended by the inclusion 
of a bill of rights, and as a part of it, a clause forever 
debarring the Federal Government from the establish- 
ment of a religion. In the western States the Virginia 
example of a complete separation of church and state, 
like most Jeffersonian examples, was universally and 
at once followed. 

Jefferson's definition of a church is interesting : — 

"A voluntary society of men, joining themselves together of 
their own accord, in order to the pubhc worshiping of God, in such 
a manner as they judge acceptable to Him, and effectual to the 
salvation of their souls. It is voluntary because no man by nature 
is bound to any church. The hope of salvation is the cause of his 
entering into it. If he finds anything wrong in it, he should be as 
free to go out, as he was to come in." 

Upon the subject of the separation of church and 
state, he said: — 

"The people have not ^ven the magistrates the care of their 
souls, because they could not. They could not because no man has 
the right to abandon the care of his salvation to another. The opinions 
of men on religion are not the subject of civil government, nor 
under its jurisdiction." 



ON FREEDOM OF RELIGION 265 

During his stay in Paris his '^ Notes on Virginia" 
were published — a pirated edition. Parton says: 
" Saturated as the book was with the repubhcan senti- 
ment of which he was the completest living exponent, 
it was eagerly sought after in Paris, and had its effect 
upon the time." "In France, too, during his stay there, 
his 'Act for Freedom of Religion' was printed, this 
time at his own instance." 

Instead of the old laws against witchcraft — which 
had existed not in New England alone, as some people 
from the way they talk seem to think, but also in 
old England and in Virginia — Jefferson substituted this 
in Virginia: — 

"All attempts to delude the people, or to abuse their under- 
standing by the pretended arts of withcrafts, conjuration, enchant- 
ments, or sorcery, or by pretended prophecies, shall be punished 
by ducking or whipping, at the discretion of a jury, not exceeding 
fifteen stripes." 

In other words, instead of punishing anybody for 
being a witch, the punishment was meted out to those 
who pretended to be witches! Thus anybody in Vir- 
ginia to be innocent of witchcraft had only to deny his 
"wiichship,^' and to be guilty must be liar and fraud 
enough "to pretend witchcraft!" To wipe out a 
superstition by a piece of legal irony like that, ap- 
proaches humor, though Jefferson's was not a humorous 
character. 



CHAPTER VIII 

JEFFERSON'S INFLUENCE ON OUR EDUCATIONAL 
INSTITUTIONS 

To George Wythe Mr. Jefferson wrote, in August, 
1786: — 

"Preach, my dear sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish and 
improve the law for educating the common people. Let our country- 
men know that the people alone can protect us against these evils; 
and that the tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than 
the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests, and 
nobles, who will rise up among us, if we leave the people in ignorance." 

I quote this because it is a keynote expression of the 
Jeffersonian doctrine that democracy and education 
are interdependent and that from their blissful marriage 
proceeds ''the happiness and freedom of man." 

Harvard University had conferred on Mr. Jefferson, 
while in France, the degree of Doctor of Laws. In his 
letter of acceptance, addressed to Dr. Willard, this 
everlasting educational basis for all his theories appears 
again. He says: ''We have spent the prime of our lives 
in procuring for them [that is, the young men of the 
country — the students at the colleges] the precious 
blessing of liberty. Let them spend theirs in showing 
that it is the great parent of science and virtue; and 
that a nation will be great in both, always in proportion 
as it is free." 

Dr. James C. Carter truthfully says that "Jefferson s 
educational scheme was part of his pohtical phi- 

266 



ON EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS 267 

losophy," being aidful to man's self-government and 
indispensable to the freedom and happiness of mankind, 
because he believed that no nation or community "could 
permanently retain this blessing [of Uberty] without the 
benefit of the lessons of truth." 

Jefferson stated the objects of primary education 
as he understood them, with a comprehension and just 
appreciation unexcelled : — 

1. "To give to every citizen the information he needs to transact 
, his own business. 

2. "To enable him to calculate for himself and to express and 
preserve his ideas, contracts and accounts in writing. 

3. "To improve, by reading, his faculties and morals. 

4. "To understand his duties to his neighbors and his country, 
and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him 
by either. 

5. " To know Ms rights; to exercise with order and justice those 
he retains; to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates, 
and to notice their conduct with diligence, candor and judgment. 

6. "And, in general, to observe with intelhgence and faithfulness 
all the social relations under which he shall be placed." 

Dr. Carter said of this statement, that it "ought 
to be written in letters of gold and hung in every 
primary school throughout the land and be known by 
heart to every teacher and child." 

As early as 1778, while we were still in the throes of 
revolutionary travail, Jefferson presented to the Legis- 
lature of his native State a bill outhning the scope and 
establishing the means of inaugurating common schools, 
grammar schools and a State university. From that 
time on, no matter where he was, no matter how 
much occupied with pubhc duties, his mind was con- 
tinuously recurring to that scheme, and in a letter 



268 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

dated June 4, 1786, addressed to General Washington, 
Jefferson expressed the opinion, that, ''nothing but the 
extreme distress of our resources" prevented that 
scheme from being carried into execution, "even during 
the war." 

Nor were his views of education narrow. The chief 
end in his mind was to equip for citizenship — practical 
and utilitarian here, as always — but the scope of the 
preparation that he would make for citizenship included 
learning of almost every sort. 

Throughout his whole life he was singularly neglect- 
ful, if not defiant, of authority. This enabled him to 
see the folly of the old four class system — Freshman, 
Sophomore, Junior and Senior — and substitute for it 
separate, independent and yet interlocked schools, each 
speciaUzing in a given subject. He saw no reason, for 
example, why a man, who wanted to study civil engi- 
neering, should be first forced to show a certain degree 
of proficiency in Latin, or Greek, and he saw, as most 
men now do and few then did, that, although the classics 
were a beautiful study, refining the taste and improving 
the intellect, there was still no reason why they should 
so nearly monopolize the field of education. 

Returning to the report of the Law Revisers; it 
contained a general plan of education for the State 
constituted of three bills drawn by Mr. Jefferson, one 
entitled, ''For the more general Diffusion of Knowledge, 
by estabhshing Common Schools and Grammar 
Schools;" the second, "For Amending the Consti- 
tution of WiUiam and Mary College and Substituting 
more certain Revenues for its Support:" and the third, 
"For estabhshing a Public Library." 



ON EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS 269 

The preamble of the bill to establish Common and 
Grammar Schools goes upon the ground that it is not 
only the right, but the duty, of a State to make proper 
provision for the education of the children of the 
commonwealth. Each county was to have three 
officers called '^ aldermen"; to be divided into ''hun- 
dreds"; in each ''hundred" there was to be a military 
company and a school. It was made the duty of the 
inhabitants of each "hundred" to erect and repair 
suitable schoolhouses. In these all children were 
entitled to receive tuition free for three years, and were 
entitled to attend the school as much longer thereafter 
as they chose, provided their parents paid for their 
attendance. The subjects taught were to be the 
"three Rs" — reading, writing and common arith- 
metic ; and it is characteristic of Jefferson that when he 
came to the subject of reading, he provided that the 
books to be read were to be such "as would at the same . 
time make them acquainted with Grecian, Roman, [ 
English and American history." The wise old fox 
knew that Virginia was not yet up to the mark of 
taxing the rich planters to teach history free to the 
children of the poor, if indeed she were up to the mark 
of taxing them to teach anything free. But history, 
next to mathematics and natural science, was his own 
favorite study. It was moreover, in his opinion, the 
most useful of all studies to free citizens under a popular 
government. 

Every ten schools were to have over them an "over- 
seer," who, in Jefferson's words, was to be "eminent ,, 
for his learning, integrity and fidelity to the Common- 
wealth." I don't suppose that anybody but Jefferson 



270 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

would have thought of testing a teacher's fitness by 
his "fideUty to the Commonwealth," but he was right, 
in a broad way. This overseer had the power of 
appointment and removal of teachers. 

Next comes his provision for Grammar or Central 
Schools. The State was to be divided into twenty 
districts, and the Board of Overseers, constituted of 
all the overseers of all the counties contained in each 
district, was to procure a hundred acres of land, situated 
as nearly as practicable in the center of the district, 
upon which were to be erected buildings of stone or 
brick, for the central academy or grammar school. 
These buildings were to contain at least a school room, 
a dining room, four rooms for master and usher, and 
ten or twelve lodging rooms. To these schools were 
to be admitted for free tuition and free board the 
brightest pupils of the common schools, as shown by 
their records, thus "carrying the talents of the State 
up by a process of selection, from the lowest to the 
highest" schools, because there was also a provision 
: made by Jefferson for carrying the brightest of each 
grammar or central academy school boys, as shown by 
their records, up to the State University; all this 
"selected talent," as it was thus "carried up," being 
educated and boarded gratis. In these grammar 
schools, or central academies, were to be taught 
Latin, Greek, English, English Grammar, history, 
geography, and the higher mathematics. 

Each overseer, in obedience to this theory of "selec- 
tion of talents," was to act "after the most diligent and 
impartial examination and inquiry," under oath, and 
"without favor or affection." At the end of each year 



ON EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS 271 

the Visitors were to cull out one-third of the least 
promising of these common-school-selected pupils and 
discontinue their free board and tuition at the grammar 
school. At the end of the second year of free board and 
tuition at the grammar school, all of them thus sent 
up were to be discontinued, except one from each 
grammar school district, who was to be the one of the 
greatest merit, who was permitted to remain four years 
longer, and after that, if he passed, he was to be deemed 
a ''senior." Now from these seniors, thus arrived at 
by process of "survival of the fittest and extinction of 
the unfit," the Visitors were each year to select one 
and send him with free board and tuition to the State i 
University. ' 

2. "The Bill for Amending the Constitution of 
William and Mary College and Substituting more 
certain Revenues for its Support," that is, making it a 
State University, first and cardinally, did away with 
religious tests for professors and students. Because of 
this it was never enacted. Church influence at William 
and Mary was too strong. It was by its charter a 
Church of England School, and inclination ran with the 
provisions of the charter to prevent the abolition of reli- 
gious tests for teachers and even for pupils. Thus 
William and Mary missed being the State University. 

3. His Bill for establishing a Public Library appro- 
priated two thousand pounds a year to purchase books 
and maps. It failed at that time, but a similar law, 
based on it, passed in 1822-1823. 

Girls as well as boys were to be admitted to Jeffer- 
son's common schools. In this Henry G. Boutelle says 
that he was "ten years ahead of Boston." 



272 PERMANENT INTFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

Never surrendering an idea, Jefferson began to work 
on the project of a State University elsewhere than at 
WiUiam and Mary, with these cardinal, and at that 
time, for the most part, novel featm-es: — 

"Freedom of teaching in independent elective schools — by Pro- 
fessor's Lectures. 

"Freedom of Study — Student selects his 'ticket.' 

"The Honor System — No espionage — Freedom of conduct under 
obligation of observing the laws of the State and the United 
States. 

"Proficiency in mtermediate and final examinations — not class 
attendance, not daily examinations, nor time spent, nor degrees 
attained elsewhere — brought degrees, at Jefferson's University. 

" No gradations in a degree — all cum laude or none, (80%-75% 
necessary to pass). 

"No honorary degrees. 

"Degrees to bear EngUsh, not Latin names — Master of Arts etc. 

" No rewards — no college honors — except a certificate of having 
passed examination in the 'school,' or a number of examinations 
in a number of schools, entitling to a prescribed degree. 

"No compulsory attendance on prayers or service. Each denomi- 
nation to send a clergyman for two years, who conducts daily 
prayers and Sunday service." (They are well attended and the 
preacher is paid by voluntary contributions of students.) 

All of which were later engrafted on the University 
of Virginia at Charlottesville. 

Jefferson was a stickler for educating w^omen, but 
not precisely as men. His general principles were : — 

\st. "A soUd education to enable them to educate their own 
daughters. 

Dancing, 



2nd. f Then special studies 



Music, 
Poetry, 
, Household economy." 



ox EDUCATIONAL IXSTITUTIOXS 273 

Jefferson held that the chief use of education was to 
fit a man for citizenship. Hence the common school, 
and, to some extent, the grannnar school — the edu- 
cation of the masses — was (because they are all one) 
the backbone of his system, but he was just as fixed in 
his opinion, that there ought to be also a University 
school for the people — a State University. The 
permanent influence of I\Ir. Jefferson upon pubhc 
institutions has nowhere been more pronounced or 
more beneficial than in this. His idea was taken up by 
his disciples in ^Michigan and a State University school 
for the people estabhshed there, even before Jeffer- 
son had succeeded in consummating his plans in Vir- 
ginia. 

Judge A. B. Woodward, his friend, whom he had 
appointed Chief Justice of Michigan Territory', created 
a university in the wilderness on Jefferson's plan, before 
Jefferson could open the University of Virginia; no 
religious creed to be taught — professors to hold posi- 
tions for ten years — a Jesuit priest and a Presby- 
terian minister working together in the faculty — the 
beginning of our priceless heritage of universities free 
from shackles on thought. 

E. P. Powell says of this Michigan University: — 

"It was Jeffersonianism worked out to a finish. "^ 
"The fact of forty State universities. . . each ambitious to excel, 
and becoming more completely every year the head and centre of 
a complete state system, is one of the grandest features of Amer- 
ican institutional development. "- 

1 "Jefferson and Hamilton in our Education," New England Maga- 
zine, 1S96, n. s., Vol. 14, page 702. 
* Same, page 703. 
.19 



274 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

Powell adds: — 

"This we owe to that master mind that stood beside Washington 
in the hour of the nation's birth . . . the brilliant imagination 
that foresaw the moral and intellectual needs of a vast republic, 
as well as its political needs." 

A university's purpose, according to Jefferson's 
notion, was 'Ho make men fit to be wise citizens," and 
to equip able statesmen, or men able to select states- 
men — ''to train men to be judges, legislators, diplo- 
mats, farmers, scientists, teachers, manufacturers" — 
in other words, successful laborers in the vineyard of 
human progress. 

Then add Jefferson's idea of Theological Seminaries 
near by, erected and paid for by the churches, and 
enjoying the benefit of the tuition of the university 
schools, and their pupils meeting in these schools, so 
as to wear away sectarian prejudices, all emulating one 
another in the conception and practice of true Christian 
and unsectarian morals. The churches never availed 
themselves of this privilege. 

It is too long to quote in detail, but I refer the student 
to Jefferson's report of June 6, 1818, drawn by him and 
signed not only by him, but by Madison and Monroe 
and Cabell, upon the estabUshment of a State Uni- 
versity. It is one of the ablest and most interesting of 
his state papers. This much of it I will quote: — 

"By a bill of the last session, passed by one branch, and printed 
by the other for public consideration, a disposition appears to go 
into a system of general education, of which a single University for 
the use of the whole State is to be a component part. A purpose so 
auspicious to the future destinies of our country, which would 
bring such a mass of mind into activity for its welfare, cannot be 



ON EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS 275 

contemplated without kindling the warmest affection for the land 
of our birth, with an animating prospect into its future history. 
Well directed education improves the morals, enlarges the minds, 
enlightens the councils, instructs the industry, and advances the 
power, the prosperity and the happiness of the nation." 

He was no orator, but here, as in the Declaration of 
Independence and in the First Inaugural Address, he 
is eloquent. As a result of this report a bill was passed, 
which gave authority for the foundation of the Uni- 
versity of Virginia, whereunder Jefferson and some 
others, including Madison, were appointed members of 
a commission to determine upon a suitable place for it. 
Mr. Jefferson's report to the Legislature, as Chairman 
of this commission, is one of his greatest state docu- 
ments. In it he undertook to "delineate^the work of 
the lower schools — common schools — and that of the 
grammar schools and colleges, which were to be ''insti- 
tutions intermediate between primary schools and the 
University," and of the University itself. 

Upon a meeting of the Board of Visitors constituted 
by the Act, under the authority reposed in them, they 
selected Thomas Jefferson as Rector of the University. 
From that time on the University became his pet and 
almost the complete monopohst of his time and at- 
tention. 

It has been said that Jefferson had no imagination. 
If it be meant by this that he had none of the romantic 
tinge, it is perhaps true, but he had constructive 
imagination of the highest order. He planned, not 
for what was then needed, but for a greater future than 
his or any other University in America has yet enjoyed, 
although the work of his own has been of the most 



276 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

thorough and the most useful sort. He said, in a 
report of November 29, 1821, to the Directors of the 
Literary Fund : — 

"We had, therefore, no supplementary guide but our own judg- 
ments, which we have exercised conscientiously, in adopting a scale 
and style of building, beUeved to be proportioned to the respect- 
ability, the means, and the wants of our country, and such as may be 
approved in any future condition it may attain. We owed it to it 
to do, not what was to perish with ourselves, but what would remain, 
to be respected and preserved through other ages, and we fondly 
hope that the instruction which may flow from this institution, 
kindly cherished, by advancing the minds of our youth with the 
growing science of the times, and elevating the views of our citizens 
generally, to the practice of the social duties and functions of self- 
government, may ensure to our country the reputation, the safety 
and prosperity, and all the other blessings, which experience proves 
to result from the cultivation and improvement of the mind; and, 
without going into the monitory history of the ancient world, 
in all its quarters, and at all its periods, that of the soil on which we 
live, and of its occupants, indigenous and immigrant, teaches the 
awful lesson, that no nation is permitted to live in ignorance with 
impunity." 

It has been urged by some critics that Mr. Jeifferson 
had the idea of a university only for a State, while 
Washington's "grander conception" had gone to a 
national university. I am not one of those who 
believe that a great national university, overshadowing 
the State universities, is the best in the long run for 
the country. I think that each State of this Union, 
as it becomes more densely settled, will have sufficient 
means readily to furnish its citizens with a great uni- 
versity, equal to anything in Europe, in its scope, its 
thoroughness, its teaching faculty, its apparatus, and 
its architecture, and that the estabhshment of a 



\ 



ON EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS 277 

great national university would discourage the growth 
towards perfection of the State institutions. But, as 
it happens, this opinion of mine Mr. Jefferson did not 
share, thus, as usual, putting his critics to shame — 
for, in his sixth annual message to Congress, he urged 
the foundation of a university at Washington, saying, 
in answer to obvious arguments of the old school ^ J^' 
against it: *'A public institution can alone supply those ''' \ 
sciences which, though rarely called for, are yet neces- 
sary to complete the circle, all the parts of which con- 
tribute to the improvement of the country, and some 
of them to its preservation." 

I believe that the Federal Government has taken 
over so many things that it has resulted in the States 
waiting on it for nearly everything. If the dreams of 
Washington and Jefferson had been realized early in ■ 
our history, the great and splendidly conducted State <^J ]V 
universities, now within easy reach of nearly every ^; 
citizen's boy, would never have been born, and the \^ 
older privately endowed institutions, like Harvard, 
and Yale, and Princeton, and King's or Columbia, 
already born, would have lagged behind in the race, 
overshadowed and becoming more and more compara- 
tively incompetent to aid in the great higher educational ->^ '^'^ 
work of the land, and possessing from generation to 
generation less and less the confidence of the student 
body and the faculty body of the Union. 

In Jefferson's educational report, written from Fish 
Gap Inn, August 1, 1818, to which I have already 
referred, there are some things the reading of which 
may or may not tire your patience, but they are so 
sound, so full of common sense, so far from doctrin- 



^.> 



!S 



278 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

airism, of which take-things-on-trust writers always 
accuse him, that I shall adventure it : — 

"And this brings us to the point at which are to commence the 
higher branches of education, of which the Legislature requires the 
development; those for example, which are: — 

"(1) To form the statesmen, legislators and judges, on whom 
public prosperity and individual happiness are so much to depend; 

"(2) To expound the principles and structure of government, 
the laws which regulate the intercourse of nations, those formed 
municipally for our own goverimient, and a sound spirit of legisla- 
tion, which, banishing aU arbitrary and unnecessary restraint on 
individual action, shall leave us free to do whatever does not violate 
the equal rights of another; 

"(3) To harmonize and promote the interests of agriculture, 
manufactures and commerce, and by well-informed views of poUtcal 
economy, to give a free scope to the public industry; 

"(4) To develop the reasoning faculties of our youth, enlarge 
their minds, cultivate their morals, and instill into them the pre- 
cepts of virtue and order; 

" (5) To enlighten them with mathematical and physical sciences, 
which advance the arts, and administer to the health, the subsistence, 
and the comforts of human Ufe; 

"And, generally, to form them to habits of reflection and cor- 
rect action, rendering them examples of virtue to others, and of 
happiness within themselves. 

"These are the objects of that higher grade of education, the 
benefits and blessings of which the Legislature now proposes to 
provide for the good and ornament of their country, the grati- 
fication and happiness of their fellow-citizens, of the parent espe- 
cially, and his progeny, on whom all of his affections are concen- 
trated." 

Jefferson's plan held out, as we have seen, prizes in 
each of the grades of the educational system, to an 
honored place in the next higher grade which would be 
not only of material value to those who succeeded in 
obtaining them, but of mind-training value to those 



ON EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS 279 

who unsuccessfully competed for them, and perhaps 
of still greater aspiration value to the general body of 
pupils and students as fixing an ideal educational 
esprit du corps. 

In this report of 1818 to the Legislature of Virginia 
Jefferson, among other things, says: — 

** Education generates habits of application, of order, of the 
love of virtue, and controls by the force of habit any innate ob- 
liquities in our moral organization. We should he far, loo, from the 
persuasion that man is fixed, by the law of his nature, at a given point; 
that his improvement is a cliimera, and the hope delusive of render- 
ing himself wiser, happier, or better than our fore-fathers were. 
As well might it be urged that the wild and uncultivated tree, 
hitherto yielding sour and bitter fruit only, can never be made to 
yield better; yet we know that the grafting art implants a new tree 
on the savage stock. ... It carmot be but that each generation, 
succeeding to the knowledge acquired by all those that preceded 
it, adding to it their own acquisitions and discoveries, and handing 
the mass down for successive and constant accumulation, must 
advance the knowledge and well-being of mankind, not infinitely, 
as some have said, but indefinitely, and to a term which no man can 
fix and foresee." 

A great system of state-supported common schools, 
academies and universities, in a government where all 
men are accounted equal, gives to the poor, as well as 
to the rich, the opportunity of developing their talents, 
and does it in institutions without class bias. Some 
universities and colleges have a spirit which would 
subject man's mind, by limiting free range of thought, 
and some others resting upon private endowments, even 
in our own country to-day, are permeated with the 
distinct bias of plutocracy. A selfish and designing 
plutocracy can give Jefferson's "kings, nobles and 
priests" of the opening quotation of this chapter two 



280 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

points in every game of three and still nearly always 
win. 

He was happy in caUing attention to the fact, that 
the benefits of colleges and universities are not monopo- 
lized by students within their walls. Every man goes 
out as a practical teacher in that walk of life, which he 
is to tread — to the advantage of all with whom he 
comes in contact. 

Jefferson, throughout his whole hfe, was pretty 
strong in preambles to bills. The preamble to his Bill 
for the Better Diffusion of Knowledge, in 1779, is as 
follows: ''And to avail the Commonwealth of those 
talents and virtues, which nature has sown so liberally 
among the poor as the rich, and which are lost to their 
country by the want of means for their cultivation; 
Be it further enacted," etc. Queer language for a 
dry statute, but characteristic of Jefferson! What 
follows, too, occurring in a letter written to Dr. W. T. 
Barry on August 4, 1822, is characteristic. After 
complimenting Barry on what had been done in the 
Legislature of Kentucky for popular education, he 
says: "A popular government, without information or 
the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce 
or a tragedy; or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever 
govern ignorance." Even the early abolitionists and 
the doctrinaires and the theorists of ''reconstruction," 
who frequently mistook Jefferson for their apostle, 
without fully understanding either him or why, learned 
that lesson in the course of time. 

In one of Jefferson's letters to Adams, written in 
1813, he speaks of an educational system as "the 
keystone of the arch of our Government." 



ON EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS 281 

And to Joseph C. Cabell, two years afterwards, he 
wrote: — 

"Were it necessary to give up either the Primaries, or the 
University, I would rather abandon the last, because it is safer to 
have a whole people respectably enlightened, than a few in a high 
state of science, and the many in ignorance. This last is the most 
dangerous state in which a nation can be." 

And yet I heard a critic once say that it was " char- 
acteristic of the South and Southern statesmen " that 
Jefferson should have spent time and wasted fortune 
in building a university in a State without a compat- 
ible system of free schools, with the idea that " if a few 
people were highly cultivated," civilization and the 
State would be in the best possible condition! 

As the democratic support, which he had received 
in his great work of making-over the American soul- 
pohtic, had had its surest strength in Virginia and in 
Kentucky, he never ceased to admonish all Virginians 
and Kentuckians to take up the great work of popular 
education, and if they did not heed his admonitions 
to the extent to which they ought to have heeded them, 
it is but another instance of "a prophet not without 
honor save in his own country!" The great West 
took it up, "the country beyond the mountains," as 
he was fond of calling it, where Jefferson was beloved 
and confided in, as perhaps no man of our entire 
history ever was, and in the acts of their legislatures 
and by the great burden of taxation which they have 
voluntarily borne, they have echoed his language: 
"No other sure foundation [than education] can be 
devised for the preservation of freedom and happi- 
ness." Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, Ilhnois and Indi- 



282 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

ana were early in the field; Michigan, as we have seen, 
|by the direct inspiration of Jefferson; Kentucky, also, 
under his direct inspiration, founded the Transylvania 
University, from which great things were expected, but 
which the slaveholders' poverty, because of ineflBcient 
labor, and his lack of sympathy with an educated com- 
mon people permitted much to decay and languish. 

Jefferson never showed greater contempt for author- 
ity than in his organization of the University of Virginia. 
He not only put modern languages upon an equal foot- 
ing with Latin and Greek and Applied Mathematics 
on a footing with pure mathematics, but he insisted 
on teaching all applied sciences. He organized a imi- 
versity of separate and independent schools, where a 
boy who had a particular reason for wanting to study 
French, for instance, could study French without having 
to be first examined in mathematics or something else, 
and a boy who wanted to fit himself to be an Architect 
or a Civil Engineer could take up the mathematics 
leading to that profession and the art itself, without 
having to show that he knew Latin or French — 
schools which might be entered by any one, provided 
only he knew enough to take up the work in that school, 
where it began at the University. Not only that, but 
he left each student free — not comparatively, or in a 
modified way — but absolutely — to study just what 
he wanted to study, and he buttressed the freedom of 
teaching, as it was buttressed in no other institution — 
each professor in each school being the judge of how he 
should teach, and teaching by lecture. This sort of 
school was especially adapted to the condition of the 
South and Southwest at that time. 



ON EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS 283 

It was assumed that a boy fit to enter a university 
knew the importance of mastering his work, and also 
knew beforehand, at that particular institution at any 
rate, that, unless it was thoroughly mastered, he could 
not possibly pass the only tests, two examinations, one 
intermediate of the term called the Intermediate and 
the other at the end of it, called the Final. 

I once heard a man say that he who was not master 
of the Greek subjunctive could not possibly have his 
mind trained. I never dispute with a dogmatist, but 
I thought to myself that the complete mastery of the 
German, or even the English, subjunctive was a thing 
"not to be sneezed at." In addition to the fact that 
Latin and Greek have been made a fetish of, they have 
been mistaught. They ought to be taught to children, 
as German and Italian are, from easy primers up, and 
to a large extent, objectively — conversationally — 
by pointing out things with their names. The fact is, 
that in the teaching of all languages some degree of 
fluency in vocabulary should precede the acquirement 
of the niceties of grammar-science. 

To illustrate: There are many, doubtless, among my 
readers who can read German or French easily without 
conscious translating, after having spent from a half 
to a third as much time in acquiring them as was 
spent in procuring a more or less formal reading 
acquaintance with Latin and Greek. In fact, for a 
while there was a superstition to the effect that civih- 
zation itself — that is, the progress of culture — de- 
pended upon the acquirement of Latin and Greek. 
The Japanese have dissipated that idea. It is wonder- 
ful what a progress they have made in all the arts and 



284 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

sciences and languages of modern Europe, but they left 
Latin and Greek out of their curricula, not because 
they were not worth studying, but because the Japanese 
had something else to do. 

The United States have "gone a world-powering." 
Under our flag are Porto Rico and the thousand isles 
of the Philippine Archipelago, and yet a hundred boys 
probably are taught Latin in the public schools of 
America, where one is taught Spanish. No man was 
ever a greater stickler for the study of the classics than 
was Mr. Jefferson, but he was never superstitious about 
it, and never had the notion that an American boy 
ought to be prevented from studying other things 
simply because he had not studied them. In his ''Notes 
on Virginia," he says: "The learning Greek and Latin 
is going into disuse in Europe. I know not what their 
manners and customs may call for; but it would be very 
ill-judged in us to follow their example in this instance." 
"I do not pretend that language is a science," he says 
in addition. "It is only an instrument for the attain- 
ment of science, but that time is not lost which is 
employed in providing tools for future operations." 

Jefferson always conceived more than he could con- 
summate. Back as far as 1779, he had tried to have 
chemistry made an independent branch at William and 
Mary. This was at a time when Buffon thought that 
chemistry was no more entitled to be called a science 
than cookery. 

One of the branches which Jefferson thought the best 
fitted for a place in a university school for the people 
was what he called the Science of Government — 
political economy, and the poUtical history of England 



ON EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS 285 

and the United States, and of Virginia, the Consti- 
tution of the United States, and the Federalist, etc. 
I am not sure, but I do not beheve that the idea of 
estabUshing a school of the Science of Government in 
its several branches had then been broached by any 
one. At any rate, it is only of late years that such 
schools have been established in any degree of complete- 
ness at all, including even diplomacy and the history 
of diplomacy, in American universities. Of course, 
constitutional law and international law were very 
early taught to those, who proposed to pursue the 
legal profession, and in them is to be found much of 
the science of government. Some sHght degree of 
proficiency in such science of political economy as then 
existed was, too, within the reach of the American 
student. Notwithstanding all of Jefferson's efforts, 
the University of Virginia has not to-day a separate 
school of the science of government. There was some 
talk three or four years ago about adding that school 
to the others, but I believe, for some reason, the project 
failed. It is the noblest of all studies, and the most 
universally useful in a free country. Whatsoever is 
done now in that line of study by the youth of our 
country — and especially at Columbia and at Johns 
Hopkins much good work has been done — it must be 
remembered, to Jefferson's eternal honor, that he pro- 
posed it nearly a hundred years ago; in fact, going 
back to his first proposal of it, fully that long. 

All through the very many expressions occurring and 
recurring in his letters and public papers concerning 
education, is the idea that its chief object is to fit men 
for citizenship and statesmanship. No man ever 



286 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

realized more keenly than he the interplay between 
democratic institutions and education, the manner in 
which each requires and nourishes the other. It is 
not only true that free institutions cannot exist for 
long, when based upon doing the will of the ignorant, 
but it is also true that democratic institutions constitute 
the greatest encouragement to education. Education 
being necessary to its success, a successful democracy 
must provide it. The one, education, is the firm base; 
the other, democracy, is the beautiful super-structure. 
They are parts of one monument — a monument dedi- 
cated to the indefinite perfectibihty of human insti- 
tutions, and of the human race. 

Jefferson, the theorist! And yet, as early as April, 
1814, he had seized upon a great idea — still con- 
necting education and citizenship — which has even 
yet been adopted in only four or five of the American 
States, my own, I am proud to say, being one of them. 

In a letter written to De Onis, then Spanish Minister, 
he said, concerning the Constitution, which had been 
adopted by the liberal party in Spain: — 

"There is one provision which will immortalize its inventors. 
It is that which, after a certain epoch, disfranchises every citizen 
who cannot read and write. This is new, and it is the fruitful germ 
of the improvement of everything good, and the correction of every- 
thing imperfect in the present constitution. This will give you an 
enlightened people, and an energetic public opinion which will 
control and enchain the aristocratic spirit of the government." 

In every country where the aristocracy rules, it rules 
by the aid of an ignorant rabble, by military sub- 
jection, by purchase of votes, by intimidation about 
employment, by force of the rabble being somehow 



ON EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS 287 

dependent upon it, or, by the force of a certain menial 
and master affinity — like that between the "nigger" 
and the "quahty" — which ties the rabble to the 
aristocracy. D'Israeli had to some extent this idea 
of cooperation of the aristocracy and the rabble, in 
his mind, as have had some of the other so-called 
"Democratic Tories" in Great Britain. If you can 
cut off that ignorant, illiterate rabble by confining the 
suffrage to those at least, who are sufficiently enlight- 
ened to read and write, you have to a large extent 
Hmited the scope of aristocratic influence. 

While we teach that men must prepare themselves 
for many things, we leave them to imagine that they 
are natural-born graduates in the science of govern- 
ment. Never fear that in the long run, democracy will 
not find its own errors, and will not correct them. But 
also never hope that in the meantime there will not be 
much of error, much of wrong, and some oppression. 

My own impression is that an educational qualifica- 
tion for the suffrage would go far to remove the evil of 
bad government, and that teaching every man some- 
thing of the science of government, and at least so much 
to the informed as involves the proposition that he is 
a poor citizen, who does not carry his information to 
his primaries and to the elections, would go further. 
At any rate, it is plain that every species of information 
and of science has been more rapidly advanced, than 
the science of government itself. 

This subject was a sort of mania with Jefferson. 
Numbers of young men in Virginia were writing to him 
all the time to know what books to read, writing to 
him as a sort of tutor. Many of them moved into 



288 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

Charlottesville, even before the University was opened, 
to get the benefit of his advice and library. He wrote 
to Kosciuszko concerning them in this language: — 

"In advising the course of their reading, I endeavor to keep 
their attention fixed on the main objects of all science, the freedom 
and happiness of men. So that, coming to bear a share in the councils 
and government of their country, they will keep ever in view the 
sole objects of all legitimate government." 

He never had the happiness of reading Tennyson, but 
he understood fully the theory and hope of men rising 
"on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher 
things," and, although he never expressed it in that way, 
he would have been charmed with Tennyson's expres- 
sion of the idea, that the final and highest goal and hope 
for all is " in the Parhament of man, the Federation of the 
world," and that man's nearest approach to perfecti- 
bility will be when among an informed people "the 
common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in 
awe." "The common sense of most" is an expression 
that would have tickled his very heart, and I sometimes 
wonder why he never thought of it. I sometimes 
wonder, too, how much, if anything, of the idealist 
poet's thoughts were due to Thomas Jefferson. Con- 
sciously, I imagine, very little — unconsciously, and 
by world-kinship-infiltration, I suspect, a good deal. 
However that may be, there is much in common 
between what may be called the political and social 
philosophy of Locksley Hall and the ideas of Jefferson. 

One of the curious reasons that Jefferson gives in 
recommending especially the study of history is that it 
"will enable them [that is, the people] to know 



ON EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS 289 

ambition under every guise it may assume; and know- 
ing it, to defeat its views." 

Ambitious and self-seeking men are such chameleons, 
and succeeding periods and conditions differ so much 
from those that have gone before, that it would be 
curious to examine how far f amiharity with the methods 
of the old enemies of liberty would teach the people 
the designs of the new. 

It is pathetic to note the broad scope of Jefferson's 
ideas, as in the letter to Peter Carr, during the Revo- 
lution, when compared with what the Legislature and 
the people of the State of Virginia could be prevailed 
upon, or were able, actually to do. He speaks of teach- 
ing not only the Science of Government, to which I have 
referred, but agriculture, horticulture, veterinary sci- 
ence, and electricity, about which almost nothing was 
known in his day, and meteorology, a science of which 
it may be said that it is not yet full born, and, finally, 
galvanism and magnetism, concerning which the same 
statement may even yet be made. Even at that early 
date, he suggested a scheme for night schools, where 
lectures should be given to those, whose daily occu- 
pations did not permit them to use daylight time. I 
have no knowledge whether any of the founders of any 
of these most useful institutions ever got inspiration 
from him, but I know that he preceded them all in 
America by from a quarter to a half a century, and that 
if they had read him, it would have been a helpful and 
sympathetic reading. 

After much reading of Jefferson, I cannot escape the 
idea that he frequently wrote with the conviction that 
every word he put on paper would some day come to 

20 



290 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

be read, not in Virginia alone, but far outside of her 
limits. I cannot account for many utterances, except 
upon 'Hhe sowing the seed by the wayside" theory. 
A thought with him was a seed to grow, a germ to 
infect, ''a httle leaven to leaven the whole lump," 
after the fermentation of its kind. 

Jefferson attached a school of agriculture to his 
scheme of the University, and explained how many of 
the things to be taught in the other schools, like chem- 
istry, and botany, and zoology, etc., would naturally 
interlink themselves with the study of agriculture; 
like chemistry, for example, becoming agricultural 
chemistry, etc. Most of our States, upon receiving 
Federal aid for agricultural schools, have founded 
separate institutions, duplicating much of the work 
done at the State universities, and duplicating, to a 
great degree, the expense. A school of agriculture 
connected with each State university, and a plan for 
a degree in agriculture, to be attained as a result of 
proficiency in all the studies in the agricultural school 
proper, plus a proficiency in several other cognate 
schools, would have effected the purpose in view much 
more cheaply and much more efficiently, provided only 
the State university would not have required of the 
boy desiring to study agriculture, that he pass a sense- 
less examination in subjects a knowledge of which is 
not necessary to the mastery of scientific agriculture. 

It was pecuHarly fit that in Jefferson's memory a 
school of agriculture should have been attached to the 
University of Virginia, and, yet, after an ineffectual 
attempt, which failed for what reasons I know not 
(but chiefly, I take it, because of the contempt felt by 



ON EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS 291 

the votaries of higher classicism for so plebeian a 
pursuit), a separate college of agriculture was founded 
at Blacksburg, Virginia. 

Those who understand Jefferson's peculiarly inter- 
esting character can smile with pleasure, when they 
reflect how pleased he would have been at the perusal 
of the endless number of Farmers' Bulletins, which 
proceed from the Department of Agriculture at Wash- 
ington, and from the various agricultural colleges of 
the country. He would have been superlatively 
absorbed in some of Dr. Wiley's interesting work, 
and in his still more interesting narration of it, and his 
optimistic and sanguine temperament, running ahead 
of the time to the end, would have seen in WilUs 
Moore's meteorological reports a period when the 
agriculturalist, ''forewarned by science," would no 
longer hold his fortune at the sport of winds and frosts. 

In the "back to the farm" movement, Jefferson 
would have been in the front rank. He always thought 
that farming was the natural, and the noblest industrial 
pursuit in which men could engage. He speaks of it 
in a letter to David Williams, dated November 4, 1803, 
as the one which is ''first in utility" and "ought to be 
first in respect." He thought that: — 

"The same artificial means which have been used to produce a 
competition in learning, may be equally successful in restoring 
agriculture to its primary dignity in the eyes of men. It is a science 
of the very first order. It counts among its handmaids the most 
respectable sciences; such as Chemistry, Natural Philosophy, 
Mechanics, Mathematics generally, Natural History, Botany. In 
every college and university a professorship of agriculture, and the 
class of its students, might be honored as the first. Young men 
choosing their academical education with this, as the crown of all 



292 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF EJFFERSON 

other sciences, fascinated with its solid charms, and at a time when 
they are to choose an occupation, instead of crowding the other 
classes, would return to the farms of their fathers, their own, or 
those of others, and replenish and invigorate a calling now languish- 
ing," etc. 

True then, every word of it. True yet. The disease 
called high cost of living, and by many other names, is 
here diagnosed, and a partial remedy is eloquently 
suggested. In addition to that, it sounds, does it not, 
a good deal like what we are pleased to call "modern 
scientific agriculture"? It is as far removed as possible 
from the notion that a boy that is fit for anything else 
ought not to go to farming, and still further removed 
from the cavalier-like contempt with which college 
fledgelings view the great primary art. The truth is, 
that it requires very much more brains and very much 
more information to be a really successful and up-to- 
date farmer, than it does to make an excellent lawyer, 
physician. Senator, or college professor — besides 
contributing more to human comfort and freedom. 
It is one of the occupations that you cannot pursue to 
highest point of success without possessing a sort of 
encyclopedic information, coupled with initiative and 
decision, for the problem is never the same for any 
two years. 

But enough of what is perhaps a hobby. 

Speaking of English — the noblest of languages — 
and the importance of its study, these are his words: 
''A language already fraught with all the eminent 
science of our parent country, the future vehicle of 
whatever we may ourselves achieve, and destined to 
occupy so much space on the globe, claims distin- 
guished attention in American education." He might 



ON EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS 293 

have expressed a just pride that before he retired from 
office his poUcies had resulted in our language occupying 
a yet more broadly extended ''space on the Globe." 

When Jefferson was a boy his father had told him 
that the training of the hand must go step by step with 
that of the mind. In fact, his father, being a very large 
and powerful man, held the opinion that really great 
minds could not exist outside of strong bodies. Jeffer- 
son therefore pointed out that a hall for physical 
training, with the proper apparatus, ought to be at-| 
tached to the University. Again the consummation' 
fell short of his conceptions. The Virginia Legislature 
regarded that, I suppose, as ''one of Jefferson's pets." 
At any rate, the University did not have a gymnasium 
until a few years ago, when Mr. Fayerweather donated 
the money for its erection and equipment. 

In a letter to Peter Carr, which Jefferson wrote on 
September 7, 1814, he thus outlines another scheme for 
physical culture and national defense, which even to 
this day has not gone into operation and which might 
well be adopted at his and all State universities: 
"Through the whole collegiate course, at the hours of 
recreation on certain days, all of the students should 
be taught the manual exercise [meaning the manual 
of arms], miUtary evolutions, and manoeuvres, and 
should be under a standing organization, with proper 
officers to train and command them." It seems curious 
that Jefferson should seemingly have forgotten here his 
own cherished principle of leaving the choice of study 
always open to the student. However, his idea might 
be well applied, with this modification, that those only 
who choose to do so shall attend the school of miUtary 



294 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

science and practice. Thus the members of the student 
miUtary organization would be volunteers. It would 
furnish the United States, by the way, with a very good 
and not a small army — highly trained, because com- 
posed of especially inteUigent men — without a dollar 
of public expense, except the amount of money neces- 
sary for each State to employ the three professors of 
tactics and strategy and mihtary history — even these, 
as well as the drill master, could be detailed from the 
Regular Army. The other branches — mathematics, 
engineering, etc. — would interlink from the other 
schools already existing in each university. 

The heart of a university is its teaching faculty, 
and its library. Jefferson's University was early pro- 
vided with a very useful Hbrary, from which, however, 
he excluded novels, and, from the beginning, his own 
library, which was probably the largest and best selected 
private collection then in America, was at the service of 
its students. 

His professors were gotten, for the most part, from 
abroad. They were all men of the highest abihty in 
their respective Hues of work. 

But even teachers cannot make an institution of 
learning great unless the teachers and the teaching are 
free and untranamelled. With this idea in his mind, 
Mr. Jefferson, in a letter to Mr. Roscoe, dated December 
7, 1820, says: — 

"This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the 
human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow the truth wher- 
ever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error, so long as reason is left 
free to combat it." 



ON EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS 295 

His professors went through the experience, that 
every man and woman did, who were brought into close 
personal contact with Jefferson, unless there was some 
political or religious reason to make it almost im- 
possible. They fell in love with him. It is interesting, 
and, indeed, affecting, to read what they wrote about 
him — Dunglison, Tucker, and all of them. 

It is perfectly wonderful that the man should have 
succeeded in erecting the beautiful buildings, each a 
type of classic architecture — himself being the archi- 
tect and draftsman — in importing the professors, and 
in putting the institution into operation, considering 
where he was, by what confronted, and what limited 
means he had at his disposal. The poorer men of 
Virginia were apt to say, ''well, that will never do my 
boy any good. I cannot afford to board him there." 
The rich planter was wont to say that he had money 
enough to send his own boys to college and he did not 
care about being taxed to send other people's boys 
thither. Of this last class, who were not as numerous 
as the former, but had much more influence with the 
Legislature, Jefferson, on January 14, 1818, in writing 
to Cabell, said — and I think said beautifully: — 

"And will the wealthy individual have no retnbution, and what 
will this be? 1. The peopling of his neighborhood with honest, 
useful, and enhghtened citizens, understanding their own rights and 
firm in their perpetuation, 2. When their own descendants become 
poor, which they generally do in three generations, (no law of pri- 
mogeniture now perpetuating wealth in the same families) their 
children will be educated by the then rich, to his descendants, 
when become poor, thus will be given a chance of rising again. 
This is a solid consideration and should go home to the bosom of 
every parent. This will be seed sown in fertile ground. It is a 



r 



296 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

provision for his family looking to distant times, and far in duration 
beyond that he has now in hand for them. Let every man comit 
backward in his own family, and see how many generations he can 
go before he comes to the ancestor who made the fortune he now 
holds. Most of us will be stopped at the first generation, many at 
the second, few will reach the third, and not one in the State can go 
beyond the fifth." 

The finest citizenship in the world in the days of 
Washington and Jefferson was, and in our own day is, 
that of Virginia. EngUsh sturdiness and sure-footedness 
are combined with American vivacity and initiative. 
Its greatness especially shines out in loyalty and courage 
and truth, and simplicity of living — the cardinal 
virtues; but it was not then and it is not now peculiarly 
susceptible to appeals to make pecuniary sacrifices to 
be recompensed by remote rewards, especially if these 
rewards are of an educational character. But the 
patient, sweet-tempered old philosopher won measur- 
able victory over all difficulties, and was ready when his 
time came to say nunc dimittis. 

When La Fayette visited the University and Monti- 
cello in 1825, at the grand banquet which was given to 
him Jefferson attended, and in response to a toast in 
his own honor, being too feeble to rise and respond, 
handed to a friend to read a paper upon which the 
following words were written: — 

"My friends, I am old, long in the disuse of making speeches, 
and without voice to utter them. In this feeble state, the exhausted 
powers of life leave little within my competence for your service. 
If, with the aid of my younger and abler coadjutors, I can still con- 
tribute anything to advance the institution within whose walls we 
are mingUng manifestations to this our guest, it will be, as it ever 
has been, cheerfully and zealously bestowed. And could I live to 



ON EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS 297 

see it once enjoy the patronage and cherishment of our public 
authorities with undivided voice, I should die without a doubt of 
the future fortunes of my native State, and in the consoling con- 
templation of the happy influence of tliis institution on its character, 
its virtue, its prosperity, and safety." j 

He never lived to see it enjoy ''with undivided voice 
the patronage and cherishment " of Virginia's ''pubUc 
authorities," nor has any one yet hved thus long. 
Virginia has been, upon the whole, niggardly, not 
generous. It looks now, as if she would leave the first 
completely established State university in the world 
behind those that have been established elsewhere on 
the plan of its founder. The people of the new States^ 
in the West have adopted Jefferson's state university 
idea, and they have been much more generous, and 
less divided, in their support. Many of the Western 
universities surpass the parent institution in wealth, 
apphances, numbers in the faculty, comprehensive scope 
of teaching, and, especially, with irony of fate, in those 
very practical applied sciences, that Jefferson's mind 
was so peculiarly bent upon fostering. But his influ- 
ence has been none the less great and permanent, not 
only in the Western States, where his idea was taken up 
''with undivided voice," but in his own State, and the 
institution which he founded has given tone and 
character, in a notable way, not only to Virginia, but 
to the entire South. Its work has been thorough, even 
where its scope has not been comprehensive, and the 
esprit du corps has constituted one of the most precious 
things upon the American continent — difTusing a 
spirit of honor, freedom, and love of truth. It is to-day 
undoubtedly, in its spirit and in its practices, the least 



298 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

plutocratic and perhaps the most democratic institution 
in the East. Its students do not know, because they 
do not inquire, nor care to know, whether a student is 
poor or rich. They do sometimes know whether he 
comes from a good or a bad family. 

Tucker says that in consequence of a riotous tumult 
in which one of Jefferson's nephews was concerned, the 
laws of freedom at the University had to be somewhat 
altered. Perhaps so in theory, and perhaps so even in 
practice in his time, but in my day, in practice at any 
rate, there were only two rules : first, the rule which 
guides gentlemen in their intercourse with one another; 
and secondly, the rule which ought to guide all citizens 
— obedience to the laws of the State and of the United 
States. There was no such thing as a pubhc expulsion, 
though sometimes young men would quietly go home, 
and the supposition was that the Chairman of the 
Faculty had called for them, and, in a private conver- 
sation, had admonished them that they were doing no 
good for themselves or anybody else, and that perhaps 
it would be better for them to ''seek some other field of 
usefulness." Whenever this took place, of course it 
meant that they did go; but Jefferson's idea of not 
putting a stain upon a mere youth, that might hamper 
him all through life, was observed in my day there. 
There was a rule that you must attend lectures; that 
is, that you must not "cut" over so many lectures in a 
month, unless your absence was due to sickness, and 
it was pretty well known that transcending this rule 
might lead to the private admonition. Being once in 
the class room and being interrogated upon the subject 
matter of the last lecture, any student could reply 



ON EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS 299 

"Not prepared," and there was, strange to say, no 
limit upon the number of times that he could reply 
"Not prepared." There was a reason for it: he had to 
pass his "Intermediates" and "Finals" anyhow — 
they were the tests. 

In connection with Jefferson and the University of 
Virginia, Schouler, in his "Life of Jefferson," says: — 

"The first Rector of the University of Virginia lived long enough 
to see the institution opened in the Spring of 1825, with a fair roll 
of students for matriculation and a corps of able professors, most 
of whom he imported from Europe, recognizing that in the world 
of letters a young Repubhc must not be self-sufficient. Vicissitudes 
shared by Virginia herself have kept this institution, perhaps, from 
making its impression felt throughout the Union; but the oldest 
and richest of America's institutions have, in later times, enlarged, 
one after another, their spheres of activities upon a similar model. 
All the strong ideas which Jefferson's university put in force for^ 
the first time upon American soil, remain to this day as the founder 
fixed them — the distinct schools in which one may specialize 
his knowledge; the substitution of electives for the routine of a 
curriculum; the honour system of discipUne among students, 
which sets them to influencing one another and makes a law of 
liberty; and finally, an even balance between all religious and poUt- 
ical sects and parties. In matters of the higher education Jefferson, 
as a close student of comparative systems and an adapter to the 
American age, was much farther in advance of his times than in 
politics; and hence his fame in that respect has come less rapidly, 
but it will come at last." — -^ 

Hamilton W. Mabie, in an article on "The University 
of Virginia," says: — 

"It fulfilled Jefferson's noble conception of the place of a imi- 
versity in a democratic society. It was our first real university. 
It was literally Jefferson's creation. It is the most democratic of 
American colleges in its organization." 



300 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

He adds that it was "the first college in this country 
to adopt a general architectural scheme and to preserve 
it intact." George F. Mellen, in an article entitled 
''Thomas Jefferson and Higher Education," New Eng- 
land Magazine, n. s., vol. 26, 1902, says: "He affected vi- 
tally educational ideals and changed radically some of 
the current educational practices." He "introduced a 
distinct chair of modern languages, . . . and became 
the first champion of modern language studies in an 
American college curriculum." George Ticknor visited 
and sojourned with Jefferson at Monticello in 1815, 
previous to his trip to Germany for study. Mellen 
says their intimacy "bore fruit in broadening and 
liberalizing work at Harvard," where Ticknor became 
professor of French and Spanish literature. 

That Jefferson interested himself in public libraries 
as schools for adults — and therefore indispensable 
educational auxiliaries — was demonstrated in his 
letters. In 1809 he wrote to John Wyche, who had 
informed him in a recent letter of the establishment of a 
library society : — 

"I always hear with pleasure of institutions for the promotion 
of knowledge among my countrymen. The people of every country 
are the only safe guardians of their own rights, and are the only 
instruments which can be used for their destruction. And certainly 
they would never consent to be so used, were they not deceived. 
To avoid this, they should be instructed to a certain degree. I 
have often thought that nothing would do more good at small 
expense than the estabhshment of a small circulating hbrary in 
every county, to consist of a few well-chosen books, to be lent to 
the people of the county, under such regulations as would secure 
their safe return in due time. These should be such as would give 
them a general view of other history, and a particular view of that 



ON EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS 301 

of their ovm country, a tolerable knowledge of geography, the 
elements of natural philosophy, of agriculture, and mechanics." 

Of course, this is a vastly different scheme from 
those immense collections in large cities, in great and 
expensive buildmgs, of all sorts of books, whose bene- 
fits may be great, but are not diffused throughout those 
neighborhoods where they are most needed. It is 
doubtful, if a great free library in a great city, the 
donation of some generous man, produces results 
commensurate with the expense. In the first place, 
there are apt to be several free libraries and a large 
number of circulating libraries already in existence. 
In the second place, for those who are not perfectly 
indigent books are to be bought, except expensive 
reference books, for a very little. As a part of the 
"back to the farm" movement, there ought to be a 
free circulating library in every rural neighborhood, 
or else a free public library. It could be made a part 
of the school teacher's business to carry the key, to 
give out and take in and keep account of the books. 
To save the public from any expense at all — except the 
very slight one of wear and tear by use — a deposit 
might be asked, recoverable upon the return of the 
book. 

In connection with Jefferson's other educational 
work, he was a member of the Virginia State Literary 
Fund Board. Virginia not being prepared for com- 
pulsory education, he suggested the idea of holding 
over the parent the penalty of the disfranchisement of 
those of his children who could not read or write, 
adding: ''Society has certainly the right to disavow 
him, whom it offers, and is not permitted to quahfy 



302 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

for, the duties of a citizen. If we do not force instruc- 
tion, let us at least strengthen the motive to receive 
it when offered." 

The following letter to Cabell I think is one of the 
noblest ever penned, in its fortitude and optimism, and 
in its faith in the youth of the future: — 

"When I retired from the administration of public affairs, I 
thought I saw some evidence that I retired with a good degree of 
public favour, and that my conduct in office had been considered, 
by the one party at least, with approbation, and with acquiescence 
by the other. But the attempt in which I have embarked so ear- 
nestly, to procure an improvement in the normal condition of my 
native state, although, perhaps, in other states it may have strength- 
ened good dispositions, it has assuredly weakened them within our 
own. The attempt ran foul of so many local interests, of so many 
personal views, and so much ignorance, and I have been considered, 
as so particularly its promoter, that I see evidently a great change 
of sentiment towards myself. I cannot doubt its having dissatis- 
fied a respectable minority, if not a majority of the House of 
Delegates. I feel it deeply and very discouragingly. Yet I shall 
not give way. I have ever found in my progress through fife, that, 
acting for the pubfic, if we do always what is right, the approbation 
denied in the beginning will surely follow us in the end. It is from 
posterity we are to expect remuneration for the sacrifices we are 
making for their service — of time, quiet, and good will, and I 
fear not the appeal. The multitude of fine young men whom we 
shall redeem from ignorance, and who will feel that they owe to 
us the elevation of mind, of character, and station they will be able 
to attain from the result of our efforts, will insure their remembering 
us with gratitude, we will not then be weary in well doing. Usque 
ad aras, amicus tuus." 

The fact that Jefferson selected college-bred men for 
his Cabinet has been cited to prove that he was a hypo- 
crite in his professions of democracy! It merely proves 
maUce on the part of him making the charge and that 



ON EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS 303 

Jefiferson was not a demagogue. His action was abso- 
lutely consistent with the theory from which he never 
departed, that information and education are neces- 
sary for government, especially in those who do the 
actual governing. 

The pohcy of giving to the States for educational pur- 
poses the sixteenth sections of the pubHc lands, while 
the Government of the United States retains control 
of the balance, had its beginning under Jefferson's 
administration, at the time of the admission of Ohio as 
a State. There was also given to that State five per 
cent of the sales of public lands. The consecration of 
the sixteenth sections to 'Hhe better diffusion of in- 
formation" in Ohio was imitated afterwards in all 
cases upon the admission of new States, save in that of 
Texas, which being first an independent repubhc, 
reserved, with our consent, all her pubUc lands. 

Nothing in our whole history has had a more perma- 
nently beneficial effect upon our institutions — political, 
social and educational. One cannot doubt that it 
was at President Jefferson's suggestion that Gallatin, 
his Secretary of the Treasury, having at that time the 
Land Office in his Department, made the recommen- 
dations to Congress. 

As President of the United States, he signed many 
bills in which he approved appropriating public lands 
not only for common schools, but for academies and 
colleges. His conceptions were stupendous. They are 
sometimes humorous or pathetic — depending on 
your mood — when contrasted with his limited means 
of embodying them. For example, his scheme of 
transferring the whole University of Geneva to Rich- 



304 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

mond, Virginia — a scheme which might have been 
perfected, by the way, but for the fact that General 
Washington pronounced the scheme impracticable. 
Washington was one of the few men, whose opinions 
sometimes controlled, and always influenced Jefferson. 

Jefferson, while President, signed a bill providing 
that in the territory south of the Tennessee line (con- 
stituting the present States of Mississippi and Ala- 
bama) the sixteenth section of every township should be 
dedicated to the support of public schools, and in the 
Territory of Mississippi thirty-six sections of land were 
given for the use of a college — which, by the way 
was subsequently called ''Jefferson College" in compli- 
ment to the President. I am sorry to say that this 
munificent foundation was frittered away. After the 
Louisiana Territory had been acquired and opened for 
settlement, Jefferson signed the bill of April 21, 1806, 
which not only reserved the sixteenth section of every 
township, but devoted an additional township for the 
support of "a seminary of learning." 

He was an economist, but when it came to giving 
away land for school purposes, he was as much of a 
spendthrift, as he who was most of one. He was a 
strict constructionist, but it does not seem to have 
occurred to him that there could be any doubt of the 
right of the Federal Government to give away its own 
lands in advancement of the intelligence of its own 
citizens. In this, it was not acting so much in the 
capacity of a government, as in that of a land-owner. 
Congress being expressly empowered by the Consti- 
tution to ''dispose of the territory and other property 
of the United States." The dear old optimist had no 



ON EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS 305 

distrust of the future, as long as the destinies of the 
country were hung to his "two hooks," popular edu- 
cation, and local self-government. 

You will remember that Jefferson once suggested 
amending the Constitution, so as to authorize the Fed- 
eral Government to cooperate with the States in edu- 
cational work. I think it may perhaps be said with 
truth — though I have not given sufficient detailed 
research to make me assured of the accuracy of the 
comparison — that under no single administration of 
the Federal Government was there ever so much done 
by the Government, with a view to helping the States 
estabHsh and maintain education, as under his ad- 
ministration. 

The first Republican Congress, with the incoming of 
Jefferson, introduced a new custom which has had an 
abiding and permanent educational effect upon the 
people. Up to that time newspaper reporters were 
admitted and expelled at the will of the Speaker, and 
even while present, were not considered privileged to 
comment upon the proceedings. One Speaker expelled 
two for reporting speeches. Over in the Senate they 
could sit in the gallery with the other spectators, if 
they chose. The Republicans now gave reporters 
desks on the floor, and ever since then that has been the 
custom. This has two important effects: first, it acts 
as a restraint and check upon the Congressmen in both 
Houses; second, it educates the people in practical 
governmental science. 

On December 10, 1821, Hugh Nelson, a Representa- 
tive from Virginia, presented a petition signed by 
Jefferson for the "Rector and Visitors of the University 
21 



306 PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF JEFFERSON 

of Virginia," praying that "the aid and patronage of 
Congress may be extended to the cause of science and 
Uterature generally throughout the United States by 
an exemption from duties of all books and other articles 
generally used in acquiring information." This duty 
was fifteen per cent. In the petition, well worth your 
perusal, occurs this phrase: ''To obstruct the acquisi- 
tion of books from abroad, as an encouragement of the 
progress of literature at home, is burying the fountain 
to increase the flow of its waters." 

An adverse report from the Senate Finance Com- 
mittee calls books ''foreign luxuries" — fit subjects, 
therefore, for taxation, and objects "to singling out 
this important branch of industry" and "stripping it 
of all protection" and "leaving it to struggle with 
powerful competitors." How familiar these stock 
phrases of beneficiaries of law-conferred special priv- 
ileges! Also in the adverse report, foreign books are 
feared "as a means of foreign influence from which 
our youths may imbibe sentiments, dangerous to our 
liberties." 

For three years the movement was laid aside. Then, 
in 1824, Jared Sparks took it up again in the North 
American Review, and Jefferson wrote a letter to en- 
courage him in the good and wise work. It was pub- 
Hshed with effect, and in the Tariff Act of 1824, the 
taxes on books "printed before 1775^' and on all books 
in foreign languages, except Latin and Greek, were 
reduced. Printed before 1775! We didn't want any 
late information! Too dangerous a luxury! Danger- 
ous to the publishers. Thus Congress refused "to 
wipe this stain from our legislation," as Jefferson 



ON EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS 307 

stigmatizes it in his letter to Sparks, "and if possible 
obliterate it from the mind of man." 

In conclusion: Well warranted, indeed then, were 
these words of the lovable ''friend of man," written in 
his extreme old age, not long before "the night came, 
when no man could work," and standing as a prophecy 
and a promise to be Uterally fulfilled up to the very 
day but one before his death : — 

"A system of general instruction which shall reach every de- 
description of our citizens from the highest to the poorest, as it 
was the earliest, so it will be the latest, of all the public concerns 
in which I shall permit myself to take an interest." 

Verily; again the words recur: — 

"He was stigmatized as a dreamer, but his dreams came true." 



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contemporaries. Boston, Houghton, 1879. 7 v. 
Hart, Albert Bushnell. American history told by contemporaries. 

New York, Macmillan, 1901. Vol. 3: National expansion, 1783- 

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Hart, Albert Bushnell. The formation of the Union. 1750-1829. 

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Hazen, Charles Downer. Jefferson in France. (In his Coniompor- 

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310 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Ingersoll, Charles Jared. The duty on foreign books. North 

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Jay, John. Correspondence and public papers, 1763-1826; edited by 

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Jefferson, Thomas. Communication to the American Commissioners 

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Jefferson, Thomas. Manual of parliamentary practice. (In U. S. 

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Jefferson, Thomas. A Summary view of the rights of British Amer- 

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Jefferson's Memoirs and correspondence. Edinburgh Review, 1830. 

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Kean, Robert Garlic Hill. Thomas Jefferson as a legislator. 

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Lincoln, Abraham. Complete works; edited by John G. Nicolay 
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Lodge, Henry Cabot (editor). History of the United States, by 
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Mabie, Hamilton Wright. Some famous schools: The University of 
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Madison, James. Papers; being his correspondence and reports of 

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Marshall, John, The Life of George Washington. . . 2nd edition. 

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Monthly, 1872. 30: 547-<55 
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Longmans, 1862 



INDEX 



Academy of science, A central, to 
control men, 53 

Act for freedom of religion printed in 
Paris, 265 

Adams, Henry, on rejection of treaty 
effected by Monroe, 133; on Jeffer- 
son's aspirations, 200-1 

Adams, John, a founder, 1; error of, 
about the sentiment for inde- 
pendence, 29; inaccurate as to 
Declaration of Independence, 30- 
31, 40; colossus of debate, 31, 42; 
member of committee to prepare 
Declaration, 33; to Pickering, on 
the Declaration, 41; wrote Report 
of Committee on Rights and 
Grievances, 42^3; failed to see 
ultimate issue of French Revo- 
lution, 59; contempt of, for common 
folks, 61; in France, 107; "Dis- 
courses of Davila," 143-44; a re- 
actionary, 144; conversation with 
Hamilton on the British Consti- 
tution, 156-57; defeated Jefferson 
by three votes, 169-70; secured 
peace with France, 173-74; hated 
by Federalists, 174; his greatest of 
services, 180; heterodoxy of, 245—46 

Adams, Samuel, at Boston tea-party, 
9; and committees of correspond- 
ence, 9 

Agriculture, A school of, planned, 
289, 290-91 

Albemarle County, Instructions of, 
12-13; Committee of Safety in, 
20, 21; British prisoners in, 109-10 

Alien and sedition laws passed, 145; 
unexpected results of, 171; power 
of President under alien law, 172; 
Jefferson's antagonism to, 172; and 
Know-Nothing movement, 172 

Allegiance, The doctrine of inde- 
feasible, 16; first denial of, 68, 91 

America, the fad in France, 107 

American colonies, The, expatriated 
themselves, 16 



American Commissioners at Madrid, 
Jefferson's communication to the, 
124-25 

American experience, 6; our institu- 
tions the product of, 38 

American history, A suppressed chap- 
ter of, 143, 148, 194 

American nations. An American policy 
for all, 134, 136 

American people. The, based their 
claims upon natural rights of man, 
46 

American political theory, Jefferson's 
the, 54 

American products in France, 107-8 

American reign of terror, 175 

American Revolution, Back to the 
principles of the, 141, 183 

Americanism, Exponents of, 100 

Ames, Fisher, Letters of, 155; the 
American people like free negroes, 
155; on use for an army, 180 

Anarchy, Seeming state of, 12 

Angles and Saxons, The, expatriated 
themselves, 16 

Apollo Room in Raleigh Tavern at 
Williamsburg, Meetings in, 10, 11 

Applied sciences, at University of 
Virginia, 282 

Apportionment for representation, 
240 

Appropriations in lump sums, 237 

Aristocracy and clergy, Jefferson's 
hatred of, learned in France, 57-58; 
eradication of, 85; and the rabble, 
286-87 

Aristocracy of Colonial Virginia, The, 
88-89 

Aristocracy of virtue and talent, An; 
74 

Armstrong, General, on Florida, 221 

Army, with Hamilton as chief, and 
Federalist officers, projected, 175- 
76, 177; to overthrow popular 
liberty, 179; size of the, 179; Ames 
on use of an, 180; Jefferson on, 198 



313 



314 



INDEX 



Asiatic interests and alliances, 3 
As3embl6e Nationale, L', Name of, 
suggested by Jefferson, 56; com- 
mittee of, on constitution asked 
Jefferson's assistance, 64; not an 
integral legislature, 115 
Auditors placed in one Department, 

237 
Austria denies expatriation, 15 
Authorities on the rights of man, 
55-56 

Bancroft, George, on the committees 

of correspondence, 8 
Barbary powers, The, put down, 243 
Bayard, James Asheton, Claims of, 
baseless, 189; on Aaron Burr, 191; 
the creed of, 192; gave off-the-bench 
opinion of Marshall, 194 
Bequests, Limitation of, 86 
Bibles, Old ladies hid their, 261-62 
Bill of Rights adopted in Virginia, 43 
Bill of Rights, embodied in Consti- 
tution, 163, 264 
Blacksburg, Va., College of Agri- 
culture at, 291 
Blackstone on libel, 178 
Blockade, Jefferson on, 126 
Bookkeeping, Hamilton's system of, 36 
Books, Removal of tariff on, refused 

by Congress, 306-7 
Borough, Rotten, system in England, 

156, 157 
Bosses, Too many, 196 
Boston, Closing the port of, a declara- 
tion of war, 11; Jefferson's protest 
against, 18; ten years behind 
Jefferson in admitting girls to 
schools, 271 
Bread famine in France, 58 
British alliance, Hamilton's proposed, 

174 
British ambassador. Reception of, 234 
British captives in Albemarle county, 

110 
British constitution, our best inherit- 
ance, 30; "best form," 148 
British Court society imitated, 226 
British government "most perfect 

which ever existed," 157 
British House of Lords, The, 147 
British model advised for the French, 
58 



British nation, Arraignment of justice 
of, 22 

Brown, Justice, Decision of, in 
Downes case, 213 

Bryce, James, on the Louisiana 
purchase, 206 

Buckle's "History of civilization," 4 

Bull Moose Convention, The, pre- 
tended to draw faith from Jefferson, 
54 

Burke, Edmund, edited Jefferson's 
"Summary View," 14; failed to see 
ultimate issue of French Revo- 
lution, 59 ; on Chatham, 93 ; rhetoric 
of, 156, 157 

Burr, Aaron, Miranda's connection 
with, 174; had same number of 
electoral votes as Jefferson, 183; 
Hamilton's hatred of, 185; Bayard 
on, 191; something to credit of, 
191; conspiracy of, put down, 242 

Business, big. Divorce of government 
and politics from, 159 

Cabell, Joseph C, Letters to, 97-98; 

and State University, 274 
Cabot, George, Letters of, 155 
Calhoun, John C, far apart from 

Jefferson, 96 
California became a part of the 

United States on acquisition, 212 
Canada, G. Morris on acquisition of, 

214; Jefferson had eye on, 221 
Canning, and the Monroe Doctrine, 

135 
Capital punishment, Sole defence of, 

72 
Careys, The, of Virginia, 89 
Carlyle and the French Revolution, 63 
Carmichael, William, 112 
Carpet-bag authority intimidated, 12 
Carr, Dabney, brother-in-law of 

Jefferson, 10 
Carter, Dr. James C, on Jefferson's 

educational scheme, 266-67 
Carters, The, of Virginia, 89 
Censors of government. On, 171 
Central American republics, The, 3 
Ceremonials and etiquette. No bureau 

of, in State Department, 137 
Ceremonies, Forms, cavalcadings and, 

abolished, 227-28, 230, 243 
Channing, a bracer of the republic, 1 



INDEX 



315 



Charles I, Execution of, justified, 17 

Charter for the French people, 63 

Charters, Rights confirmed not cre- 
ated by, 13 

Chatham, Burke on, 93; accepted 
Newcastle and corruption, 160; on 
a free people governing dependents, 
220 

Childs, Dr., Efiforts of, in Massa- 
chusetts Convention of 1820, 262 

Christian Constitutional Society, 
Hamilton's, 194 

Church, Definition of a, 264; separa- 
tion of, and state, 264 

Church membership a requisite for 
sufifrage, 94, 95 

Church, State, disestablished, 104, 
245; punishments in Virginia for 
offenses against, 247; levies for 
support of, 247-48; property of, 
saved to the, 251-52 

Cis-Atlantic affairs. No interference 
of Europe in, 134, 136 

Citizenship, Act defining, 68, 69; 
education to equip for, 268, 273, 
285-89 

Civil war imminent, 182, 183 

Clarke, George Rogers, sent to the 
northwestern country, 201, 220 

Clarkson, Thomas, 70 

Class distinctions ignored, 92 

Class hatred of Jefferson, 105 

Class opposition to Jefferson's the- 
ories, 88-89, 91 

Class privileges, Jefferson on abolish- 
ment of, 64 

Classics, Place of the, 268; and 
modem languages, 282-84 

Clergy, Loss to, of glebes and salaries, 
245; levies for support of, 247, 248, 
252; attempt at a Bill providing 
for, failed, 252 

Coalescence of Kings and bene- 
ficiaries of special privilege, 60 

Coinage system, 239 

Coles, Edward, set free his slaves, 76; 
letter to, on slaves, 77 

College-bred men in Jefferson's Cab- 
inet, 302-3 

College students, Duty of, 266 

Colleges and universities, Benefits of, 
280 

Colonies, Greek Republican con- 



ception of status of, 16; practice of 
British empire towards her, 19; 
ministry planning to invade the, 22 

Colony, Internal regvdations of each, 
12 

Columbia University, 277; study of 
science of government at, 285 

Columbus, Christopher, 217 

Committee on Rights and Grievances, 
Report of, by John Adams, 42-43 

Committees of correspondence. Origin 
of the, 8; intercolonial, 8, 10; 
revolutionary, 8, 11; the real 
government, 10 

Committees of safety, 9, 52; Girardin 
on the, 20; Randall on the, 20-21 

Commonwealth and common weal, 48 

Community, Right of any, to change 
its form of government, 13, 46, 48 

Compact, Origin of the neighborhood, 
5-6 

Confederation, Virginia's assent to a, 
12 

Congress, An American, 8; a general 
annual, called for, by Virginia, 11 

Congress, Rights of, respecting treat- 
ies, 131; should cooperate with the 
States, 241 

Consent of the governed, 46 

Constable, The, 6; elective, 102 

Constitution, the present, Jefferson 
in favor of, 34; Hamilton's plan for 
a, 150-52; views on, 152-54; "a 
frail and worthless fabric," 153; 
amendments to, secured by Jeffer- 
son, 163; a bulwark of protection 
for the people, 163; the unwritten, 
169; amended, 190-91; an overcoat, 
213; Bill of rights made part of, 204 

Constitution of Virginia adopted, 43; 
with Jefferson's preamble, 44 

Constitutions, Rights confirmed not 
created by, 13 

Constitutions, state, Jefferson on, 
100-1; adopted by conventions, 
101; submitted to the people, 102; 
periodical amendments to, 103 

Constructive genius of Jefferson and 
Hamilton, 35-36 

Continental Congress, First move- 
ment for a, 11; instructions to 
Virginia members of, 14-15; Jeffer- 
son chosen to, 21, 23; reply to 



316 



INDEX 



Lord North adopted by, 23; com- 
mittee of, on a declaration of 
causes, 23-24; adopted a declara- 
tion, 24; committee on the "Con- 
ciliatory Proposal," 26; desired a 
lasting union with Great Britain, 30 

Contraband, Doctnne concerning, 126 

Convention, Powers lodged in a, 15; 
Jefferson threatened to call a, 
186, 187, 188, 189 

Cook, T. A., on the Monroe Doctrine, 
134-35 

Cooke, John Esten, on the change in 
Virginia, 92 

Corruption essential to government 
of a nation, 158, 160 

Cotton, John, denounced democracy, 
94-95 

Counter-Revolution, The American, 
30; overcome by Jefferson, 54, 60; 
Jefferson foresaw, 85; stemming 
tide of, 141-95; result of, an 
amendment to the Constitution, 
190-91; defeat of the, 217 

Counter-revolutionists, Desperate 

move of the, 180-81; Jay defeated 
the, 182; had choice of three things, 
186; feared a convention, 186-88; 
checkmated, 189 

County, Organization of a new, 6; 
wards or townships in a, 97-98, 
102; administration of a, 102; 
division of, into hundreds, 269 

Court system of Virginia simplified, 69 

Courts, Adventitious properties of, 
225 

Criminal laws of Virginia reformed, 
69; preamble to the criminal code, 
71-72 

Crisis, Hamilton always anticipating 
a, 154, 173-74; changing electoral 
vote of New York a, 181; approach- 
ing, 183 

Cromwell, Treaty of, with Virginia, 17 

Cross vs. Harrison, Case of, 212 

Cuba, Jefferson had eye on, 221 

Curtis, William E., on Jefferson, 194- 
95; on the acquisition of Louisiana, 
216-17; on Jefferson's inauguration, 
231-32; and manners, 233 

De Lima case, The, 212 

Death penalty, Removal of the, 69 



Debt, The public, 236, 237-38; 
amount of, paid, 242 

Debts due foreigners, Collection of, 
114 

Debts, Foreign, international, 115 

Debts, state. Federal assumption of, 
161-62 

Declaration of Independence, Essen- 
tial ideas of, in the "Summary 
View," 17; Jefferson's account of 
the writing of the, 30-31 ; committee 
chosen to prepare, 31-32; Jefferson 
the author of the, 33-34; passed, 
35; an evolution of revolutionary 
thought, 37; Merwin on, 39; 
Lincoln on, 39; parts of original 
draft of, stricken out by Congress, 
40; "quotable" and received with 
enthusiasm, 43; De Witt on, 45; 
50th anniversary of, 51; Jefferson's 
letter to Weigh tman on, 51; a 
logos, 52; the Soul-Politic of the 
American people, 54; Jefferson's 
pride in authorship of, 67; oppo- 
sition to slavery in, 74-75 

Declaration of rights, passed by 
House of Burgesses, 32, 43 ; adopted 
by French National Assembly, 64 

Declaration of the causes of taking g. 
up arms, 23-26; Jefferson's para- f 
graphs of the, 24, 25-26 

"Defense of American constitu- 
tions," 144 

Democracy, The fear of, 2; attacks 
upon, ineffectual, 55; Hamilton's 
distrust of, 150; more, the best 
cure for evils of, 165; judges har- 
anguing against, 175; and edu- 
cation, 266, 286-87; will correct 
its own errors, 287 

Democratic-Republican party, The, 
160 

Democratic-Republicans, The, found- 
ed on Jefferson's political theory, 
54; ceased to be Jeffersonian, 84 

Democratization, of the state, 102-3; 
of the Federal government, 196 

Democratizer of federal institutions, 
141-95 

Democratizer of state institutions, 
67-106 

Derk van Capellen, see Van Capellen 

Descents, Statute of, 73-74 



INDEX 



317 



Dickens, Charles, and the French 

Revolution, 63 
Dickinson, John, member of Com- 
mittee on declaration of causes, 24; 
kept paragraphs of Jefferson's, 24 
Diplomacy, English the official lang- 
uage of, 138; the study of, 285 
Diplomatic Corps, Highest titles of 

our, 139 
Diplomatic state papers admired, 129 
Disarmament on the border, 139 
"Discourses of Davila," The, 143 
Disestablishment, Labors for, 245- 
46, 247-51; in Massachusetts, 246, 
262; denunciation of Jefferson, 
because of, 258-63 
Dispatches, Jefferson's, 111 
Divine right of the "better element" 

to rule, 192 
Doctrinaire, Jefferson called a, 58, 67, 

£3 
Doctrines, hard and unpalatable, 89 
Dorset, Duke of, and Jefferson and 

the Tiers Etat, 56 
Downes case, The, 212-13 
Dwight, Theodore, Letters of, 155 
Dwight, Thomas, Letters of, 155 

Eastern Shore, Great estates on the, 
88-89 

Economy and liberty, 103 

Edinburgh Review on Jefferson, 111- 
12; on Miranda, 174 

Education, Aims of the higher 
branches of, 278; cumulative influ- 
ence of, 279-80; democracy must 
provide, 286; government aid for, 
under Jefferson, 305 

Education, primary, The objects of, 
267 

Education, A system of, necessitated, 
55; bill to establish, 68-69; ele- 
mentary school part of, enacted, 71; 
general, 96-97, 165; scheme for, 
presented to the State Legis- 
lature, 267-68, 269-71; prizes in 
grades of, 278-79; keystone to 
arch of government, 280 

Elections, John Adams on, 143-44 

Elective studies, 282 

Electoral college, Abolishment of, 
recommended, 241 

Emancipation of slaves. Bill for the. 



76; and deportation, 78, 82-84; 

a pre-Revolution idea, 217 
Embargo, New England's position on 

the, 120, 243 
Empire, A well-poised, 19-20 
England, Institutions of, 3-4; people 

of, in accord with Ring and Parli- 
ament, 41 
English colonies. Government system 

in, 164-65 
English Government, System of the, 

164-65 
English-speaking race, Experience of 

the, 37-38 
English the official language of 

diplomacy, 138; the study of, 283, 

292-93 
Entail, Abolition of, 67, 68, 74, 90; 

result of, 85; Bill for, 88; fight for, 

90-91 
Epitaph, Jefferson's draft of own, 216, 

251 
Eppes, Jack, Letter to, 200 
Error, Truth and, 244 
Esprit, L', des Lois, 4 
Estates, stupendous. Disposition of, 

90 
Estates tail. Act abolishing, 68, 72- 

74, 88 
Etiquette, Jefferson on, 229, 234 
Europe, broils of. No entanglement 

with the, 134, 136, 200 
Executive, Power of, in English 

Government, 164-65; self-succes- 
sive, and dictatorship, 168 
Expansion under Jefferson and Mc- 

Kinley, 217 
Expatriation, The right of, 15-16; 

first legislative assertion of, 68 
Extradition, Question of, 113 

Fairfax County, Washington and the 

resolutions of, 14 
Farming, Jefferson on, 291-92 
Fathers of countries must put up 

with free speech, 171-72 
Fayerwcather, Daniel B., gave ft.ym- 

nasium to University of Virginia, 

293 
Federal power. Extent of, over the 

States, 114 
Federal Republic of Anglo-Saxony, A, 

conceivable, 224 



318 



INDEX 



Federalist, The, opposed to popular 
movements, 164 

Federalists, The, opposed observing 
the French treaties, 118; helped 
Jefferson, 171; all army officers, 
175; plot to keep Jefferson and 
Burr from being seated, 176, 180- 
81, 186; feared a convention, 186, 
187-88; rank and file of, humiliated, 
190; Jefferson's feeling towards, 
192-93; effect of Jefferson's ad- 
ministration on, 263 

Financial system, Hamilton's, an 
imitation, 36; his Treasury meas- 
ures, 160-62 

Fiske, John, on Boston tea-party, 9; 
on seeming state of anarchy, 12; 
on Jefferson's letter to Randolph 
on separation, 28; estimate of 
Jefferson, 35-36; Jefferson no 
French doctrinaire, 45; on a Federal 
Republic of Anglo-Saxony, 224; 
on hiding Bibles, 261 

Florida, would be ours in due time, 
202-3; the people of, to be citizens, 
220; Gen. Armstrong on, 221 

Foreign Affairs, Secrecy in JDepart- 
ment of, 138 

Foreign languages not required of 
clerks in our State Department, 137 

Foreign relations. Our, an expression 
of Jefferson's policies, 122, 125, 130 

Foresight of Jefferson, 2 

Forms, ceremonies, and cavalcadings 
abolished, 227-28, 230, 243 

Forms obtaining in State Department, 
137 

Foster, J. W., anti-Jeffersonian, 122; 
on credit of United States, 162 

France, Revolutionary committee 
system in, 20; Jefferson in, 56-66; 
cost of the American war to, 57; 
domestic violence in, 60; con- 
vulsions in, followed in Europe, 62; 
our treaties with, 116-21; war with 
did not occur, 173, 174; Hamilton 
anxious to declare war with, 179- 
80; warning to, about New Orleans, 
201, 203 

Franklin, Benjamin, a bracer, 1; 
chairman committee on reply to 
Lord North, 26; made verbal 
corrections in Declaration of Inde- 



pendence, 31, 40; on committee to 

prepare the, 33; Minister to France, 

107; conceived a Federal Republic 

of English peoples, 224 
Frederick of Prussia, Treaty with, 110 
Freedom, The love of, 2 
Freedom of religion in America, 

Influence on, 244-65 
Freedom of religion, speech, etc., 46 
Freedom of speech, 46, 243, 244 
Freedom of the press, advocated, 241- 

42, 243 
French Canal-Bond-Sale, The, 172 
French debt, Payment on, suspended, 

115; we ought to have paid, 117 
French Revolution, De Witt on the, 

45; American Revolution one cause 

of the, 56-57; Jefferson and the, 

58-64 
French revolutionists, drew from 

America, 45; regarded us as a 

model, 56; Jefferson adviser of the, 

66, 57, 58; violence of, a protest, 60; 

not ripe for their blessings, 62 
French soldiers and officers caught the 

American spirit, 56-57 
French West India Islands, The, 133 
Freneau, Trouble with Washington 

over, 127-28; Jefferson on, 171 
Fr^nfesie quasi monarchique. A, 228 
Frontiersman, Jefferson a, 5-6 

Gallatin, Albert, on right to acquire 
territory by treaty, 210-11; estab- 
lished our treasury system, 238; 
and the public lands, 303 
Gardener, Helen, on Lincoln, 78 
Genet, Edmond C. E., Mission of, 
121-22; recalled, 124; settled in 
America, 125 
George III, Appeal to, in the "Sum- 
mary View," 19-20; reply of Van 
Capellen to, 31; name of, legislated 
out of prayer book in Virginia, 32; 
censure of, stricken out of Declara- 
tion of Independence, 40—41 
German, Study of, 283 
Germany, Institutions of, 3—4 
Gierke, Otto, on the rights of man, 38 
Girardin, L. H., on committees of 

safety, 20 
Glebes, church, Loss of, 245 ; restored, 
251-52 



INDEX 



319 



Glittering generalities, so-called, 37, 
45, 46, 75; Lincoln's summary of 
the, 39, 75 

God and the Man, 54 

Gore, Christopher, Letters of, 155 

Government, Germ of dual system of, 
12; right of throwing off, 13, 4(j, 
47-49; Jefferson a founder of our, 
34-35; right to alter or to abolish, 
48; bad, the result of too much, 49; 
a means not an end, 50; liberties 
and, 53; grades of power conferred 
upon, 55, 97; precedent for terri- 
torial system of, 69; the real balance 
in our, 99; marshalled out into 
general and lesser republics, 102-3; 
preference for kingly, spreading, 
142-44; Hamilton on efficiency in, 
149-50, 161; by popular plebiscite 
advocated, 165; censors of, 171; 
'ibelling the, unknown, 172 

Government, Our Federal, the least 
responsive to result of an election, 
164; power delegated to, 209-10; 
Jefferson on, 212 

Government resting on compact. Idea 
of, 5-6 

Government, Science of, as a study, 
284-85, 287-88, 289 

Governments, Recognition of, 116 

Grant, rebuked by own party, 166, 
167 

Great Britain, Lasting union with, 
desired, 30; and the Monroe 
Doctrine, 135, 136; centennial of 
peace with, 139; about to seize 
New Orleans, 201; could take 
and hold against France, 204 

Greek and Latin, The teaching of, 
283, 284 

Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of, 212, 
220 

Guillotine, Lives lost by the, 60 

Hamilton, Alexander, a nation builder, 
1; not a constructive genius, 36; 
distrusted the masses, 51; failed 
to see ultimate issue of French 
Revolution, 59; on extent of Federal 
power, 114; on French treaties and 
Minister, 118; on Genet, 124; a 
monarchist, 144, 145, 149, 150, 153; 
advocated monarchy at Consti- 



tutional Convention, 147-48; head- 
notes of speech, 148-49, 150; plan 
offered to the Constitutional Con- 
vention, 150-52; views on present 
Constitution, 152-54; letters of, 
155, 174; conversation with J. 
Adams on a "monarchy bottomed 
on corruption," 156-57, 158; Jeffer- 
son on, 158; deemed corruption 
essential, 158-59; idol of the 
monicd classes, 159; Treasury meas- 
ures of, 160-61; in the Federalist, 
163-64; his philosophy of govern- 
ment, 170; H. C. Merwin on, 173- 
74; on a permanent army, 175-76, 
177; advised division of Pennsyl- 
vania and Virginia, 176; on libels 
against government oflficials, 177; 
anxious for a war, 179-80; letter to 
Jay on changing vote of New York, 
181-82, 186; military ambition of, 
182-83; hated Burr more than 
Jefferson, 185, 189; questioned 
repeal of the judiciary act, 194; 
I' Christian Constitutional Society" 
of. 194 

Hamilton, John C, biographer, 148 

Hanover County, Resolutions of, 14 

Harbors of refuge, 110 

Harlan, Justice, Dissenting opinion 
of, in the Downes case, 213-14 

Harmony of the bold with the 
cautious in Virginia, 7 

Hart, A. B., on Jefferson's discretion, 
203-4; on the acquisition of Louisi- 
ana, 215; on our treasury system, 
238 

Harvard University, 277 

Hazen, calls Jefferson a republican 
militant, 58; on Jefferson's views of 
the French Revolution, 59 

Henry, Patrick, and resolutions of 
Hanover County, 14; opposed to 
Constitution, 34 

Hero-worship, the great danger of a 
democracy, 235 

Hill, A. P., Stonewall Jackson's last 
words an order to, 52 

History, The study of, 269, 288-89 

Hoar, Senator, on Jefferson, 216 

Home-making, Vast territory for, 216, 
217 

House of Burgesses, Meeting of, in 



320 



INDEX 



the Apollo Room, 10, 11; called 
for a general congress, 11; instruc- 
tions to delegates, 11-12; resolu- 
tions of, for independence, 32 

House of Commons, Powers of, 164- 
65 

House of Lords "a most noble insti- 
tution," 147 

House of Representatives, to deter- 
mine between Jefferson and Burr, 
183-84; plan for, to reorganize the 
government, 186 

Huger, on Jefferson's election, 184, 
186, 190, 191 

Hugo, Victor, 245 

Humaneness, legislative. First ex- 
ample of, 69 

Hundreds, Counties to be divided 
into, 97, 269; military company 
and school in each, 269 

Illinois, Education in, 281 
I Hi migration. Restriction of, 140 
Impressment, Question of, 132 
Inaugural processions, expensive and 

dangerous, 234 
Independence, hastened by com- 
munication from R. Penn and A. 
Lee, 28-29; increase of advocates 
of, 31 
Independency, Jefferson nearing, 28 
Indiana, Education in, 281 
Indians, Land acquired from, by 

treaty, 239-40 
Individual, The, his own governor, 46 

and the Divine Individuality, 54 
Influence, Jefferson's, how treated, 4 
as a diplomat, 107-40; as president 
196-243; on freedom of religion 
244-65; on our educational insti- 
tutions, 266-307 
Influence, political, A man's, 4 
Inheritance, Limitation of, 86 
Institutions, Permanency of a na- 
tion's, 2-3 ; what are, 3-4 ; informing 
spirit of our, 7; dangers to, 168; 
debt of our, to Jefferson, 184; 
reverence for, 235 
Internal taxes abolished, 236 
International law. Correspondence 

with Hammond on, 139 
International relations, Jefferson's 
impress on our, 112; message on, 



128-29; successfully managed by 
Jefferson, 130; correspondence with 
Hammond on, 139; all power with 
regard to, resides in the Federal 
Government, 210-11 

Interstate commerce. Power of Con- 
gress over, 240-41 

Intimidation, So-called, of an Ad- 
ministration, 18 

Intolerance and incompetency in the 
church, 246 

Iowa, Education in, 281 

Italian, Study of, 283 

Italy, Institutions of, 3-4 

Jackson Democrats, The, 29-30 

Jackson, Stonewall, Last words of, 52 

Jacobins, How the French became, 
60-61 

Japanese, The, and the classics, 
283-84 

Jay, John, on a King, 146; dreaded 
popular movements, 164; rejected 
Hamilton's scheme, 181-82, 186 

Jay Treaty, The, 112, 131, 132; 
Washington's humiliation of sign- 
ing, 197 

Jefferson, Andrew D. White on, 1-2; 
the man, 4; his environment, 5-6; 
the revolutionist, 7-66; in America, 
7-56; member of House of Bur- 
gesses, 13; on the "Summary 
View," 14-16; proscribed, 14, 17; 
always in advance, 17; "timid" and 
"vacillating," 17, 20, 23; chairman 
of Committee of Safety, 20, 21; 
member of Continental Congress, 
21, 23; Reply to North's "Con- 
ciliatory Proposal," 21-22, 23, 26; 
draws up Declaration of causes of 
taking up arms, 24, 25-26; member 
of committee on Lord North's 
"Proposal," 26; on first idea of 
separation, 28-29; corrected Adams' 
error about Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, 30-31; chairman of com- 
mittee on Declaration, 32, 33; 
legacy of class hatred of, 33; a 
founder of our Government, 34-35; 
faith of, in the people, 36; on rights 
of man, 38; his original draft of 
the Declaration of Independence, 
40; on Adams', and Pickering's 



INDEX 



321 



observations, 41-42; "plan of gov- 
ernment" for Virginia, 43-44; on 
the business of government, 49-50; 
on love for and distrust of the 
people, 50-51; on the Declaration, 
61; last words of, 52; parties based 
on political theory of, 54; its 
salient points, 55; in France, 56- 
66; modesty of, 56, 64-65, 67; and 
the French revolutionists, 56, 57, 
61-66; a Celt, 57; on what was 
best for France, 57-58; his hope for 
France, 58-61; four great measures 
of, 67; inscription for tomb of, 67; 
acts of constructive legislation, 
68-70; on freeing his slaves, 75- 
76, 77-78; on importation of slaves, 
76; on emancipation and deporta- 
tion, 78, 82-84; a logos, 82; presci- 
ent wisdom of, 83; a conservative 
reformer, 85; on limitation of 
bequests, 86-87; m Virginia House 
of Delegates, 87-88; an apostle of 
local self-government, 96-106; Wat- 
eon on work of, 104; on state 
governments, 104; mind of, a 
laboratory, 105; as a diplomat, 
107-40; Minister to France, 107-8, 
111; the Model treaty, 108-11; as 
Secretary of State, 112, 114r-15, 
129; on the French debt, 115; on 
the French treaties, 117-18; on 
neutrality, 122-23; on Genet, 124, 
125; on our relations with foreign 
nations, 125; on free goods, block- 
ade, and contraband, 126; resigns 
from the Cabinet, 126, 128; Report 
on foreign commerce, 129; on rights 
of Congress and President respect- 
ing treaties, 131-33; the Monroe 
Doctrine, 133-36; stemming the 
counter-revolution, 141-95; a prac- 
tical man, 142; election of, in 1800, 
our second revolution, 155; on 
conversation of Adams with Hamil- 
ton, 156-57; secured amendments 
to Constitution, 162-63; on term 
for President, 165-67; refused third 
term, 166, 169; elected Vice-Presi- 
dent, 170; schemes to defeat 
election of, as President, 181-90; 
elected by the people, 183; had 
same number of electoral votes as 
22 



Burr, 183; victory of, 184, 189; 
denied right of Congress to re- 
organize government, 186; threat- 
ened to call a convention, 186-89; 
refused to make terms, 188; de- 
feated the Federalists, 189; on the 
result, 190; inaugural address of, 
193; on error, 193; Curtis on, 195; 
influence of, as President, 196-243; 
our reasons for peace, 197-98; on 
an army, 198; on Leopard-Chesa- 
peake incident, 199; hoped for a 
new era, 200-1; the expansionist, 
201; on marrying the British fleet 
and nation, 203; discretion of, 
203-4; on the Louisiana cession, 
205-6; and Napoleon, 206; the 
purchase, 206-7; doubts of, on 
acquisition of territory, 208, 209-10; 
mistake of, 211; on powers of 
Federal Government, 212; annexed 
contiguous lands, 217; broad vision 
of, for expansion, 221-22; ordinance 
for Northwest Territory, 223; and 
Washington, friends, 228; reception 
to ladies at levee, 230; inauguration, 
231-32; as President he was the 
court, 233; afraid of hero-worship, 
235; father of our coinage system, 
239; on freedom in religion, 244, 
245; member of Committee on 
religion and morality, 246; Bill for 
religious freedom, 249-50, 253-56; 
religious views of, 257-58; denunci- 
ation of, 258-63; as a political 
manager, 263; made a LL.D. at 
Harvard, 266; educational scheme, 
267-71; project for a State Uni- 
versity, 272, 274-75; Rector of 
University, 275; Report of, 270, 
277-79; strong in preambles, 280; 
on State Literary Fund Board, 
300-1; stupendous conceptions of, 
303-4; a spendthrift economist, 
304-5; petition for removal of 
duties on books, 305-6; for edu- 
cation to the last, 307 

Jefferson Bible, The, 258 

Jefferson College, in Mississippi, 
Foundation of, frittered away, 304 

Jefferson, Letters of, quoted: To Wm. 
Wirt, 7; to John Randolph, 28, 30; 
to Du Pont de Nemours, 50; to 



322 



INDEX 



Mayor Weightman on the Declara- 
tion, 51; to Mr. Short on the 
French Revolution, 61; to E. Coles 
on the slaves, 77; to Franklin on 
the change in Virginia, 92-93; to 
Gov, Tyler on education and 
hundreds, 96-97; to Cabell on 
education and wards, 97-98; to 
Kercheval on townships, 98; to 
Kercheval on state constitutions, 
100-1; to E. Rutledge on the Jay 
Treaty, 131; on Monroe Doctrine, 
134, 136; to John Taylor on 
President's term, 166-67; to Madi- 
son on defeat of the Federalists, 189; 
to Noah Worcester on peace, 196; 
to Eppes on European wars, 200; 
to De Marbois on expansion, 222; 
to Madison on adulatory titles, 
226-27; to Gallatin on finances, 
235-36; mistake in publishing, 258; 
to Dr. Rush on tyranny over mind 
of man, 259; to Wythe on democ- 
racy and education, 266; to Cabell 
on primaries, 281; to De Onis on 
suffrage in Spain, 286 ; to Kosciusko 
on reading for young men, 288; 
to Williams on farming, 291-92; 
to Peter Carr, 289, 293; to Roscoe 
on truth, 294; to Cabell on the 
wealthy, 295-96; to Wyche on 
county libraries, 300-1; to Cabell 
on his own work for the University, 
302 

Jeffersonian simplicity, 103, 139, 
225-39; called simply Mr. Jefferson, 
226; abolished forms, ceremonies, 
and mysteries, 227-28, 230, 243; 
dislike of public scenes, 228; at 
White House, 229; Curtis' slur at, 
231-32; criticism of, 233-34; of 
forms, 235; in the Treasury Depart- 
ment, 235-38 

Jeffersonian spirit, The, 216-17 

Jeffersonian theory, see Political the- 
ory, Jefferson's 

Jefferson's Ana, 142, 156, 228 

Jefferson's "Manual," 170 

Jefferson's portrait in Bull Moose 
Convention, 54 

Jingoes, Words too wise for, 198 

Johns Hopkins University, Study of 
science of government at, 286 



Judges, Election of, 101; Hamilton's 

proposed, 178 
Judiciary, The, to overthrow popular 

Uberty, 179 
Judiciary Act, Repeal of the Federal, 

194 
Jurors to be elective, 103 
Jury system, recommended to 

National Assembly, 65 
Justice of the peace, The, 6; to be 

elective, 102, 103; federal, to hunt 

down "libellers," 178 

Kean, R. G. H., on Act abolishing 

slave trade, 69-70; on the statute 

of descents, 72-73 
Kentucky Resolutions, The, 96, 145, 

175 
Kentucky, Transylvania University 

founded in, 282 
Kercheval, Samuel, Letter to, 98 
King, the English, Hamilton on, 147- 

48, 150, 151-52 
King, Rufus, Letters of, 174 
Kingship, A common, the sole binding 

tie, 19 
Know-Nothing movement. The, 172 
Knowledge will govern ignorance, 280 
Knox, Henry, a monarchist, 144, 145 
Ku Klux Klan, The, 9 

Lafayette, Jefferson's advice to, 

57; banquet to, attended by 

Jefferson, 296-97 
Land, subjected to the payment of 

debts, 91 
Landholders, Small, 87 
Lands, Public, given for education, 

303-4 
Language, Lucidity of, 69; law, 

reformed, 70 
Languages, modern, Jefferson cham- 
pion of, 300 
Law revision committee of Virginia 

Legislature, 70; report of, 268 
Laws and institutions. Reverence for, 

235 
Leadership, Political, 195 
Lee, Arthur, messenger to Great 

Britain, 28-29 
Lee, Henry, advised making Marshall 

president, 162 
Lee, Richard Henry, Dean of Virginia 



INDEX 



323 



delegation, 32, 35; opposed to the 
Constitution, 34; charged plagi- 
arism, 42; favored clergy Bill, 252; 
on avarice and religion, 253 

Lee, Thomas L., member of Law 
revision committee, 70 

Lees, The, of Virginia, 89 

Legislature of Virginia, see House of 
Burgesses 

Legislature, One, may not infringe 
on rights of another, 19, 21 

Leonard, Daniel, on the committees 
of correspondence, 10 

Leopard-Chesapeake incident, Jeffer- 
son on the, 199 

Letters, Hoards of, unpublished, 155 

Lex talionis. Protest against, 69 

Libels, Hamilton urged laws against, 
177; Blackstone on, 178 

Lioerties and government, 63 

Liberty, An empire for, 201-24, 216, 
221 

Library, Jefferson's private, 294 

Library, PubHc, BUI for a, 268, 271; 
letter on, 300-1 

Lincoln, Abraham, on the Declaration 
of Independence, 39, 75; a Jeffer- 
sonian, 54; Helen Gardener's por- 
trayal of, 78; faith of, in the people, 
193 

Livingston, Robert R., member of 
committee to prepare Declaration 
of Independence, 33; Minister to 
France, 126; and the Louisiana 
purchase, 202-3, 207 

Locke, John, "Treatises of Govern- 
ment" of, 37, 42 

Lodge, Henry Cabot, on committees 
of correspondence, 8; on Jefferson, 
104; on the monied interests, 161-62 

Logos, The Declaration of Inde- 
pendence a, 52 

Louis XVI dethroned, 115, 118 

Louisiana Territory, Acquisition of, 
140, 214, 242; story of, 202-9; 
ceded by Spain to France, 202; 
negotiations for, 202-6; Hart on 
the, 215; aims attained by the, 215- 
16; status of citizens of, under 
treaty, 218, 220; Spanish and 
French laws re-enacted for, 218-19; 
states carved out of, 223 



Louisiana Treaty submitted to Con- 
gress, 131 
Loyalists, The, in New York, 145-46 
Lyon, MaKhew, cast vote of Vermont 
for Jefferson, 189 

Mabie, H. W., on the University of 
Virginia, 299, 300 

McKean, Thomas, governor of Penn- 
sylvania, 188 

McKinley, William, annexed distant 
possessions, 217 

Madison, James, favored adoption of 
Constitution, 34; reported Hamil- 
ton's Convention speech, 147, 148, 
150; on powers of Federal Govern- 
ment, 210-11; opposed clergy Bill, 
252; appealed to people, 253; 
favored State University, 274, 275 

Majority, A parliamentary, 160 

Man, God and the, 54; land and the, 
91 

Maryland, Religious toleration estab- 
lished in, by the Roman Catholics, 
251 

Marshall, John, on Jefferson, 111, 
129-30, 184-85; mentioned for 
presidency, 186; Lee favored, 192; 
off-the-bench opinion of, 194 

Mason, George, opposed to the 
Constitution, 34; drew up first 
Constitution of Virginia, 44; mem- 
ber of Law revision committee, 70; 
opposed clergy Bill, 252, 253 

Mason, One Dr., on Jefferson, 259 

Massachusetts Bay rejected aristo- 
cracy as a form of government, 95 

Massachusetts, Church support com- 
pulsory in, 262 

Mazzei, Story of, against Jefferson, 
259 

Mellen, G. F., on Jefferson and 
higher education, 300 

Men of the hour dangerous in a 
crisis, 168 

Mercer, James, in Virginia Assemblyj 
21 

Merriam, Charles E., "American 
political theories," 38; on the 
American working hypothesis, 46; 
on the theocratic government in 
New England, 94-95 

Merwin, H. C, on Hamilton's 



324 



INDEX 



"crisis," 173-74; on Jefferson's 
simplicity of forms, 235 

Mexico, 3; Territory acquired from, 
220; states out of, 223 

Michigan, State University created 
in, 273. 282 

Milton, John, "Defense of the English 
People," 37; "License of public 
printing," 245; "Tenure of Kings 
and Magistrates," 37 

Ministers abroad, Instructions to our, 
109 

Ministers, Foreign, national not dyn- 
astic agents, 118 

Minnesota, Education in, 281 

Miranda, Francesco, revolutionist, 
174 

Mississippi, Constitutional conven- 
tions in, 102 

Mississippi River, Right of na\'igation 
of the, 112-13, 215, 217, 222-23 

Mohawk Indians, The, of the Boston 
tea-party, 9 

Monarchical party. Existence of a, 
154; Washington thought, dead, 160 

Monarchists, Large numbers of, 145 

Monarchy and democracy. Long con- 
test between principles of, 143, 145 

Monied interests. Tying the, to the 
government, 161-62; not necessary, 
243 

Monocrats, Many Whigs among the, 
146 

Monroe, James, consulted and fol- 
lowed Jefferson, 135; governor of 
Yirginia, 188; and Livingston, 
negotiators, 203, 207; and State 
University, 274 

Monroe Doctrine, First inkling of the, 
133; expressions of, 134-36; full 
born, 136 

Montesquieu, 99, 157 

Montmarin, Count de, on salt beef, 
108 

Moral sense. Influence of, on govern- 
ment, 51 

Morris, Gouverneur, on protecting 
French nobles, 61; Jefferson did not 
confide in, 62; character of, 63 
instructions to, on French debt, 115 
to Walsh on Hamilton, 152, 153 
to Ogden, 154; a reactionary, 154 
to Ogden, on Hamilton, 183; to 



Hamilton on election of Jefferson, 
184, 186; favored Jefferson's elec- 
tion, 189-90; obeyed will of the 
people, 191; on desperate measures, 
192; on acquisition of Canada and 
Louisiana, 214 

Morris, Robert, Action of, elected 
Jefferson, 189, 190; obeyed will of 
the people, 191 

Morse, J. T., on Jefferson's reply to 
North's "Proposal," 26-27; on the 
Louisiana purchase, 202 

Napoleon, Victories of, useless to us, 

117; might have succeeded, 120; 

purpose of, in selling Louisiana, 

204-5, 206, 207-8; ante-dated the 

Treaty, 208 
National bank, Hamilton's scheme 

for a, 161-62 
National sentiment the condition of 

national existence, 152 
Nations, Intercourse of, under the 

model treaty, 109 
Naturalization of foreigners. Bill for 

the, 91; law for, 140 
Necker, Jacques, on the British Con- 
stitution, 147, 157 
Negro postmistress. A, and a closed 

post office, 18 
Negroes, Freedom for, as a race and 

as a few individuals, 77-78; the 

American people like free, 155 
Nelson, Hugh, presented Jefferson's 

petition for removal of duties on 

books, 305-6 
Nelsons, The, of Virginia, 89 
Neutral property in war-time, 109 
Neutral ships and free goods, 126 
Neutrality, Declaration of, 120; Jeffer- 
son on, 122-23 
New England clergy hated Jefferson, 

259, 261-62; odium theologicum 

partially disarmed, 263 
New England Magazine, on heterodoxy 

of Adams and Jefferson, 245 
New England, Monarchical ideas in, 

146; threats of dissolution in, 208-9 
New Orleans, Great Britain about 

to seize, 201; France and, 203; 

Hart on Jefferson's policy, 203-4; 

Napoleon and, 204-5 
New York, First movement for a 



INDEX 



325 



Continental Congress came from, 
11; worse thing than primo-geniture 
in, 90; electoral vote of, for Jeffer- 
son, 181; Hamilton's scheme to 
reverse, 181 

Newcastle, Duke of, and corruption, 
160 

Newspaper reporters given desks in 
Congress, 305 

Nicholas, George, 21; opposed entail 
Bill, 91; opposed Clergy Bill. 252 

Night schools suggested by Jefferson, 
289 

North, Lord, "Conciliatory Pro- 
posal" of, 21; Jefferson's reply to, 
21-22, 23, 26, 42 

Northwest Territory, Bill of 1784 for 
government of, 69, 223; slavery 
excluded from the, 76-77 

"Notes on Virginia," Jefferson's, 28- 
29; liberal sentiments in, 57; 
opposition to slavery in, 74; 
freedom of religion, 244, 246; 
Bill for religious freedom in, 248, 
264; pirated edition of, in Paris, 
265; on study of language, 284 

Nurselings of luxury, 89 

Officers of the general government. 

Protection of, from libel, 177-78; 

superiority of, over the mass of 

the people, 225 
Offices, Unnecessary, abolished, 237 
Ohio, Public lands given for edu- 
cation in, 303 
Old Line Whigs, The, 29-30 
Oligarchs, The Confederate, 80 
Opinion, An, punished, not an act, 

18; source of, 254; not subject to 

jurisdiction, 255, 264 
Opponents, political, Traditional 

courtesy of, in Va., 90-91 
Oppressions, A series of, denounced 

in the "Summary View," 16-17 
Oregon country. Claim on, secured by 

Jefferson, 221, 243 
Otis, Harrison Gray, Hamilton's letter 

to, on war, 179-80 
Otis, James, Reference by Adams to 

pamphlet of, 41-42; conceived a 

Federal Republic of Anglo-Saxony, 

224 
Overseers, school, Duties of, 269-70 



Pages, The, of Virginia, 89 

Paine, Thomas, Jefferson kept promise 
made to, 259-60 

Parliament, had no right to interfere 
in the colonies, 21-22; people of 
England in accord with, 41 

Parmelee, Mary P., on Jefferson, 105 

Parton, James, on Jefferson in France, 
64-65; on the model treaty, 109, 
110; on the change of sentiment, 
142, 143; on Jefferson's "family 
soup," 225; on liberty of belief, 
263 

Patronage, Hamilton's salutary, 178- 
79; executive, abolished, 237; re- 
duced, 242 

Peace, My passion is, 196, 199; our 
reasons for, 197-98 

Peace-at-almost-any-price policy, 196; 
wisdom of, 199, 243 

Penalties, brutal, Amelioration of, 69 

Pendleton, Edmund, member of Law 
revision committee, 70; opposed 
abolishing entails, 91; and primo- 
geniture, 92 

Pendletons, The, of Virginia, 89 

Pendulum, standard of measure, 239 

JPenn, Richard, and A. Lee, reported 
the King's reply, 28-29 

Penn, William, Definition of free 
government, 95 

Pennsylvania, First constitution of, 
48; division of, advised by Hamil- 
ton, 176; troops mobilized in, 176; 
vote of, to be thrown out, 182; 
would protect a convention, 187, 
188 

People, Jefferson on love for and 
distrust of the, 50-51; Woodrow 
Wilson on the, 50; Hamilton dis- 
trusted the, 51; not Americans, 125; 
John Adams on the, 143-44; 
"your, is a great beast," 153, 158; 
will of, must be done, 191; faith 
in common sense of the, 193 

Petition, The right of, 46 

Philippines, World-powering in the, 
3, 220; status of, 211, 212; of 
people of, under the treaty, 218; 
no constitutional protection for, 219 

Physical culture and national defense, 
293-94 

Pickering, Timothy, published Adama' 



326 



INDEX 



criticism on the Declaration, 41, 
42; letters of, 155, 174 

Pilgrim Fathers, The, and the Puri- 
tans, 95 

Pitt, the Elder, see Chatham 

Plagiarism, No, by Adams or Jeffer- 
son, 43 

Planter, The rich, and the University, 
295-96 

Plumer, W., Letters of, 165 

Political theory, Jefferson's, Parties 
founded on, 54; the Soul-Politic, 64; 
salient points of, 65; source of, 55 

Politicians, conscious hypocrites, 159, 
193 

Politics, big. Divorce of big business 
from, 159 

Porto Rico did not become a part of 
the United States on acquisition, 
212; status of people of, under 
treaty, 218; no constitutional pro- 
tection for, 219 

Possessions, distant, with alien popu- 
lations. What to do with, 213; 
annexed by McKinley, 217 

Post office, under a negro postmistress, 
closed, 18 

Powell, E. P., on A suppressed 
chapter of American history, 143; 
on Michigan University, 273; on 
Jefferson, 274 

Powers, not delegated reserved, 34, 
46-46, 163; doctrine of delegated, 
48-49; grades of, conferred upon 
government, 55, 97; state and 
national, 55; all, with regard to 
foreign affairs, delegated, 209-10 

Preamble to Virginia Constitution, 
Jefferson's, 44, 67, 69; to Bill for 
better diffusion of knowledge, 280 

President, Rights of the, respecting 
treaties, 132; term of office of, 166- 
68, 243 

Primogeniture, Abolition of, 67, 68, 
74; result of, 85; bill for, 88, 90; 
fight for, 90-91 ; Pendleton opposed, 
92 

Princeton University, 277 

Principles of the Revolution, Reaction 
against the, 2 

Prisoners of war, Treatment of, 109-10 

Privileges, special, Beneficiaries of, 60; 
Jefferson urged withdrawal of, in 



France, 62; abolished by the 
National Assembly, 64 
Profusion and servitude, 103 
Property, Unequal division of, 86-87 
Protective system. The, in France, 108 
Prussia denies expatriation, 15 
Pure Republic, Definition of a, 96, 98 
Puritans, early. Government of the, 
theocratic, 94-95; distinction be- 
tween and the Pilgrim Fathers, 95 

Quakers, Political ideas of the, 95 
Quincy, Josiah, on dissolution of the 
Union, 209 

Rabble, The, and the aristocracy, 
286-87 

Race problem, The, 80; Jefferson on 
the, 83; Lincoln on the, 84; the 
South's drawback, 89 

Raleigh Tavern at Williamsburg, 10, 
11 

Randall, H. S., on committees of 
safety, 20-21; on class hatred of 
Jefferson, 70; on the Revolution, 
146; the original Bill for religious 
freedom, 249-50 

Randolph, John, Letters of Jefferson 
to, 27-28; emancipated his slaves, 
76; on the American reign of 
terror, 176; venom of, 221 

Randolph, John, of Roanoke, 27, 89, 
201 

Randolph, Peyton, presented Jeffer- 
son's resolutions to the Convention, 
14; asked Jefferson to reply to 
North's " Conciliatory Proposal,'! 
21 

Randolphs, The, of Virginia, 89 

Reactionaries, Utterances of the, 
143-45 

Reciprocity, Stimulus to, 107 

Recodification, Brevity and succinct- 
ness of the, 71 

Reconstruction, a fool's errand, 3; 
the mad saturnalia of, 83, 177 

Reform, political, A B C of, 159 

Regulating Act, Impossible to execute 
the, in Massachusetts, 12 

Religion, Difference of opinion in, 
244, 246; punishment under Virginia 
Act for denial of, 247 

Religious freedom, Jefferson's statute 



INDEX 



327 



of, 57, 67, 68, 70; results of, 85; 
first in the world, 245, 246, 247, 
248, 251; excerpt from, 249-50; 
passed, 253-54; amendments to, 
254-56; 263-64 

"Reply to Lord North's Conciliatory 
Proposal," 21-22, 23, 26, 42 

Representation, Equal, in the legis- 
lature, 103 

Republican government radically de- 
fective, 152 

Republican party. The, founded on 
Jefferson's theory, 54 

Republicanism, Catholic principle of, 
in recognition of governments, 115- 
16 

Republics, The lesser, 97, 99-100, 
102-3 

Resolutions for Committee of inter- 
colonial correspondence, 8; offered 
in the Assembly, 10 

Revenues, Increase of annual, 215 

Revision work in Virginia, 68-70, 85; 
Bill for revision of the laws, 88 

Revolution, The American, a cause 
of the French, 56-57 

Revolutionary intimidation, 12 

Revolutionary period. Political theory 
of the, 47-49 

Revolutionist, The, 7-66 

Rhode Island, Religious freedom in, 
except for Catholics, 251 

Right of revolution, 47-48 

Right to a thing, The, gives right to 
means for use, 112 

Rights of man, The, 13; Van Capellen 
on, 31; declared in the Roman 
Digest, 38; the object lesson of, 
in America, 39; De Witt on, 45; 
business of government to make, 
more secure, 50; letter to Weight- 
man on, 51-52; the political sci- 
entists and, 53-54; natural, inalien- 
able, God-given, 55; authorities 
for, 55-56; Jefferson a forerunner 
of, 57; unviolated, 85; the Puritans 
not enthusiastic for, 95; in Bill for 
religious freedom, 250, 256-57; the 
citizen should know his, 267 

Roman Catholics refused religious 
liberty in Rhode Island, 251; 
established it in Maryland, 251 



Roman Digest, The, expressed the 

natural rights of man, 38 
Roosevelt, Theodore, on Jefferson, 17, 
20, 23, 54, 104; rebuked by both 
parties, 166; wanted third term, 
167; spirit of sedition laws under, 
172; on "infamous conduct," 196, 
199 
Rousseau, Jefferson opposed to central 
principle of, 38; Jefferson no disciple 
of, 45; difference between Jefferson 
and school of, 49-50; not quoted 
as authority on rights, 56 
Rousseau's "Contrat social," 5 
Rowe, John, at Boston tea-party, 9 
Russia, Treaty with, abrogated, 15-16 
Rutledge, Edward, Letter to, 131 
Rutledge, John, on Jefferson's elec- 
tion, 186 

Sabine, Lorenzo, "American Loyal- 
ists," 145 

Salt beef, in France, 108 

Schools, Common and Grammar, Bill 
to establish, 208; provision for 
common, and overseers, 269-70; 
for grammar or central, 270-71; 
districts and Boards of overseers, 
270; duties of visitors, 271; co- 
education in, 271; primaries, 281 

Schools, Grammar or central. Land 
and Ijuildings for, 270; promotion 
to, from common, 270-71; from, 
to University, 271 

Schouler, James, on Jefferson and 
the University, 299 

Scientists, The political, and the 
rights of man, 53-54 

Search and arrest. Freedom from 
unreasonable, 46 

Secession, Right of peaceful, denied, 
47 

Secretary of State, Jefferson appoint- 
ed, 112; handicapped by Senate's 
right to amend a treaty, 138 

Sedgwick, Theodore, reactionary, Let- 
ters of, 155 

Sedition laws passed, 145; a blunder, 
170; result of, 171; failure of. 242 

Self-extinguishment, The right of, 53 

Self-government. Capacity of Ameri- 
can people for, 12; inherent rights 
of, 13 



328 



INDEX 



Self-government, Local, 55; an apostle 
of, 95-106; Jefferson on, 98-99 

Self-preservation, first duty of a 
nation, 117 

Shays's Rebellion, 2, 141 

Sheriffs to be elective, 103 

Sherman, Roger, member of com- 
mittee to prepare Declaration of 
Independence, 33 

Ships of war and prizes, French, 
admitted to our ports, 119 

Short, Mr. Jefferson's letter to, 60-61, 
112, 134 

Sidney, Algernon, "Discourses on 
Government," 37 

Slave owners. Difficulties of, 78; 
kindliness and heroism of, 79-80 

Slave-trading, References to, stricken 
out of Declaration of Independence, 
40; Jefferson right about, 41; Act 
to abolish, 69, 80 

Slavery, Jefiferson's opposition to, 
74-78, 81-83; efforts to prohibit, 
in all territories, 76-77; defence of, 
a defence of aristocracy, 80-81; 
Jefferson's words against, a logos, 
82 

Smith, Adam, 224 

Smith, Samuel, denied claims of 
Bayard, 189 

Social contract. A, at the base of 
government, 5 

Social order, Hamilton's view of, 181 

Social structure. The, aristocratic, 88 

Soul-Politic, The, within our Body- 
Politic, 4, 54; making over the 
American, 281 

Sovereignty of the people, 47 

Spain, Diplomatic correspondence 
with, 129; Holy Alliance and South 
American colonies of, 135; would 
need to sell Florida, 203 

Spanish, Study of, neglected, 284 

Sparks, Jared, battled for removal 
of tariff on books, 306 

Spanish milled dollar, basis of value, 
239 

Speech, Freedom of, 46 

Speeches from the throne. No, for 
Jefferson, nor since, 229 

Spooner Amendment, The, 219 

State, The, the safeguard of republi- 
can institutions, 96; a lesser re- 



public, 97, 99, 102-3; true barrier 
of liberty, 105 

State Department, Forms and eti- 
quette in the, 137, 139 

Stephens, Alexander, 24 

Suffrage General, 103; educational 
qualification for, 286-88 

"Summary View," Jefferson's, printed 
by the Virginia Convention, 14-15 
a mine for ideas and phrases, 15 
basis of argument in the, 15-16 
forerunner of the Declaration, 16- 
17, 42, 57; justified execution of 
Charles I, 17; protest against 
closing port of Boston, 18-19; 
appeal to George III, 19-20; 
opposition to slavery in the, 74 

Supreme Court, Contradictory de- 
cisions of the, 212 

Sweden and Norway, Separation of, 
47 

Table, Things not of the first, 47; 
things of the first, 55; the first and 
second, defined, 94 

Talleyrand, offered Louisiana to 
Livingston, 203, 215 

Taxes, Some old, abolished, no new 
created, 238; reduced, 242 

Tea, thrown overboard in Boston, 9; 
House of Burgesses on purchase of, 
10; the punishment for, 18 

Teachers, free and untrammelled, 
294-95 

Tennyson and Jefferson, 288 

Territory, acquisition of, Early doc- 
trine of, 210-11; new doctrine, with 
regard to the Philippines and 
Porto Rico, 211, 212-14; a means, 
not an end to Jefferson, 216 

Texas, Public lands of, 303 

Theological Seminaries, to be estab- 
lished by the churches, 274 

Ticknor, George, Visit of, to Jefferson, 
300 

Tiers fitat. Leaders of the, consulted 
Jefferson, 56 

Titles, Adulatory, proposed, 226-27 

Titles, Honorary, 137, 139, 226 

Tories, Position of Revolutionary 
time, 48 

Tourg6e, Albion W., 3 

Town-meeting methods opposed, 142 



INDEX 



329 



Township system in New England, 
93; Jefferson enamored with, 96; 
elementary republics, 97-98; power 
of, 98; vital principle of govern- 
ment, 98 

Trade preferences voluntary, 19-20 

Trade regulations. Unbearable, 16 

Transylvania University, Causes of 
failure of, 282 

Treason, Jefferson's act defining, 68, 
72; instructions on, 113 

Treasury measures, Hamilton's, 160- 
61 

Treasury system Gallatin's not Ham- 
ilton's, 238 

Treaties, Interpretation of, in relation 
to dual character of our Republic, 
113-14; Jefferson wary of, 199 

Treaties with France, Our, 116-21; 
violation of, 117, 130 

Treaty effected by Monroe in 1806 
not sent to Senate, 132 

Treaty of Amity and Commerce with 
France, 118-19; provisions of, 
violated, 119-20 

Treaty of Paris of '63, 112 

Treaty of 1782-83, 112 

Treaty, The Model, 108-11 

Treaty, Right of the Senate to amend 
a, 138 

Tucker, George, on desperate meas- 
ures, 192 

Tuition and board, Free, in grammar 
schools, 270 

Tyranny, submission to, or resistance 
by force, Jefferson on, 25-26 

Tyler, Governor, Letters to, 96-97 

Umpirage of reason. The, for col- 
lisions of interest, 198 

Union for the colonies. A, effected 
by the correspondence committees, 
8 

Union, The, acknowledged and em- 
phasized by Virginia, 22; right of a 
Btate to withdraw from, not 
doubted, 120; must be strengthened, 
152-53; Hamilton's devotion to, 
164; dismemberment of, 182, 208-9; 
Josiah Quincy on dissolution of, 
209 

Unit of value scheme, 239 

Uiiitarianism of Jefferson, 257 



United States, A legal government of, 
35; credit of, in Amsterdam, 162 

United States Bank, Stock of, sold, 
236 

University, A national, favored by 
Washington and Jefferson, 276-77; 
arguments against, 277 

University of Geneva, Scheme to 
transfer the, to Richmond, 303-4 

University of Virginia, Father of the, 
67; laws for establishment of, 69; 
cardinal features of, 272; founded, 
275; organization of, 282-83; no 
school for science of government at, 
285; agriculture, etc. at, 289, 290- 
91; a gymnasium for, 293; the 
Library and the teaching force, 
294-95; success of the, 295; Jeffer- 
son on, 295-97; treated niggardly 
by Virginia, 297; influence of, 297- 
98; freedom at, 298-99; Schouler 
on, 299; Mabie on, 299-300 

University, Purpose of a, 274; each 
State should have a, 276-77 

Value, Unit of, scheme, 239 

Van Capellen, Johan Derk, Reply of, 

to George IH, 31-32 
Vanity of authorship, Jefferson had 

no, 24 
Vest, Senator, on Jefferson, 129 
Virginia convention, called to elect 
delegates to Congress, 11; instruc- 
tions to members of Congress pre- 
sented to the, 14-15; the first of 
its kind, 15; Dr. Grigsby on, 104 
Virginia Dynasty, Jealousy of the, 261 
Virginia Resolutions, The, 145, 175 
Virginia, Sole tie binding, to England, 
19; would not desert her sister 
colonies, 22; reply of, to Lord 
North, 20-23, 26; a written consti- 
tution for, 32, 43-44; instructions 
to representatives to move inde- 
pendence, 32, 35, 43; efforts to stop 
slave trade in, 41; Bill of Rights 
and Constitution of, adopted, 43- 
44, 100; Jefferson's work of recon- 
struction in, 68-70, 85; recodifi- 
cation in, 69, 71; emancipation and 
non-importation of slaves in, 76, 80; 
what held, back, 89; a State made 
over, 92-93; followed Jefferson, 93; 



330 



INDEX 



constitution of, attacked, 104; 
division of, advised by Hamilton, 
176; troops mobilized in, 176; 
would protect a convention, 187, 
188; fell short of Jefferson's ideas, 
289; citizenship of, 296; neglects her 
University, 297 

Virginia State Literary Fund Board, 
301 

Visitors, school. Duties of, 271 

Walcott, Oliver, pussy-footed old 
Counter-Revolutionist, 156 

Walker, Francis, on passage of sedi- 
tion law, 170; on Hamilton's 
philosophy of government, 170-71 

Walker, John, member of House of 
Burgesses, 13 

Walpole, Robert, and corruption, 158 

War, Waste in preparation for, 198-99 

Wards, Counties to be divided into, 
97-98, 102-3 

Washington, George, a founder, 1; 
on the model treaty, 110; supported 
Jefferson against the Cabinet, 115, 
124; criticised, 125; persuaded 
Jefferson to remain in Cabinet, 
127, 130; relations with Jefferson, 
128; idea of making, king, 146; on a 
monarchical form of government, 
146-47; refused third term, 166, 
243; humiliation of, in signing Jay 
Treaty, 197; started us as the 
Great Peace Nation, 197; birth- 
day balls of, 226; titles proposed 
for, 226-27; with sword and cocked 
hat, 227, 229; favored Bill for 
supporting clergy, 252; to Mason, 
on, 252-53; influenced Jefferson, 
304 

Washington's Cabinet, 160 

Watson, Thomas E., on democratized 
Virginia, 93; on the work of Jeffer- 
son, 104; on Napoleon's victories, 
117; on Jefferson's peace policy, 
199 

Webster, Daniel, on Jefferson, 111, 
129 

Webster, Sidney, "The Two Treaties 
of Paris," 214, 218-19 

Weightman, Letter to Mayor, 61 



West, Possession of the, a bond of 
union, 222-23 

Western states. Separation of church 
and state in, 264; liberal to their 
universities, 297 

Whigs, The early, made pretense of 
Jefferson's theory, 54 

White, Andrew D., The six architects 
of our republic, 1; on Jefferson, 
1-2, 80; Jefferson's opposition to 
slavery, 81-82 

Wiley's, Dr., interesting work, 291 

William and Mary College, Bill for 
amending the Constitution of, 268; 
never enacted, 271; chemistry at, 
284 

Williams, Roger, on things not of the 
first table, 47 ; stood for democracy, 
94; in accord with Jefferson, 94-95 

Wilson, Woodrow, on those who dis- 
trust the people, 50 

Winship, A. E., and R. W. Wallace, 
on the Louisiana purchase, 204 

Wirt, William, Letter to, quoted, 7 

Wisdom, The prescient, of Jefferson, 
83 

Witchcraft, Law against, in Virginia, 
265 

Witt, Cornelius de, on the Declaration 
of Independence, 45; on the authori- 
ties for rights, 55-56; on Jefferson 
in Paris, 57-58 

Women, Education of, 272 

Woods, the. Our beginnings in, 39 

Woodward, Judge A. B., created 
Michigan University, 273 

Worcester, Noah, Jefferson's letter 
to, 196 

World democracy and world peace, 
200 

Wythe, George, agreed with Jefferson, 
13; member of Law revision com- 
mittee, 70; set free his slaves, 76; 
shared Jefferson's religious views, 
257 

Yale University, 277 
Young men consulted Jefferson on 
their reading, 287-88 

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